


Jaune Arc: The All-Rounder

by Karmealion



Category: RWBY
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:08:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29824026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karmealion/pseuds/Karmealion
Summary: When the illustrious Arc family attempts to raise their only male heir Jaune Arc as a sheltered and genteel high society type, he rejects their efforts, trains on his own and then runs away at the very first opportunity.Watch as an absurdly undertrained but clever Jaune, changes his name, makes several female friends, and attempts to make it in Hunter society.
Relationships: Jaune Arc/Blake Belladonna, Jaune Arc/Glynda Goodwitch, Jaune Arc/Penny Polendina, Jaune Arc/Pyrrha Nikos, Jaune Arc/Weiss Schnee, Jaune Arc/Yang Xiao Long, Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 40
Kudos: 64





	1. The Daily Grind

I don’t own anything to do with the RWBY franchise

Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh, grunt, groan…

“Tell me something. Why do you bother with any of this, big brother? You’re the only male born of our generation. You’re the heir apparent of the Arc family. None of this... training... is ever going to be necessary.”

Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh... Hahh, hah, grunt... 

With a heavy sigh and an angry sideways look at his twin sister, Jaune Arc ended the overhead sword strikes that he’d been practicing and allowed his ‘sword’ to drop to the sandy earth. While he was vaguely aware that it’s bad sword etiquette to allow a blade to crash into the ground, the fact that he hadn’t actually been holding a sword made those minor details unimportant. Despite the fact that he was a member of a well-known and highly respected Hunter family, Jaune wasn’t allowed to own or train with a weapon of any variety. For lack of better options, he’d been training with a heavy iron crowbar with leather wrapped around one end to simulate the hilt of a sword. For obvious reasons, he was in no danger of dulling the edge of his training blade, and he needn’t worry about proper maintenance or etiquette. 

Now that Jaune had successfully been distracted away from the rudimentary sword swings he’d been practicing, he figured that it was as good a time as any for a change of pace. Without a word, he dropped into a deep crouch before pushing himself up to his full height. It was time to complete his daily leg strengthening exercises. 

“Well... Tell me,” the pretty blonde girl prompted, yet again. “Why do you have to do… this... every single day? I don’t get much time off from training and I miss you when I’m gone. Can’t you take the day off and spend some time with me?”

With yet another sigh, Jaune turned back towards his closest friend and sister. “I’m sorry Olivia, but I can’t do that for you. If I took a day off every time one of my sisters did, I’d never get to train ever again. There’s seven of you after all, and all of you get just one day off a week. How about this though. If you really want to spend some quality time with me, then how about you teach me what the rest of you are learning. You’d have my undivided attention then.”

“You know I’m not allowed to do that Jaune,” Olivia protested in a petulant and frustrated little voice. After crossing her arms over her almost nonexistent chest, she huffed and kicked some of the sand at her feet. “You know what I think? I think that it’s selfish of you to ask me to train you, because you already know that I’m not allowed. You know very well that we’re being watched on several of the courtyard cameras, which means that I’ll be severely punished for anything that I let slip in your presence. Can’t you make both of our lives easier and just give up on this so called training?”

“No. No I can’t,” Jaune immediately answered, in a no nonsense tone of voice. “I refuse to spend my life as nothing more than breeding stock for line continuation purposes. It’s absurd that any of you think I’ll change my mind on this...”

It could be so much worse though Jaune,” the younger twin sister encouraged, while adopting the most adorable smile that she had in her repertoire. “You’ve been given an education in several fields that the rest of us don’t have the time to persue. I have no idea what you’re even talking about when it comes to science or history and that’s with you dumbing down everything you say for my benefit. I don’t know how to dance or sing like you can, paint or play an instrument like you do. I’m always amazed by how delicious your cooking is and the things that you can build with your hands. You’re a fantastically well-educated and genteel young bachelor, Jaune. When you finally come of age, you’re going to marry several of the most accomplished young heiresses that Atlas nobility has to offer. Why can’t you find satisfaction in all of the things that’ve been provided for you and make peace with your situation.”

In the moment that followed Olive Arc’s words, a heavy silence blanketed the entire courtyard. With hands that were beginning to visibly tremble, Jaune bent over, picked up his ad-hock sword, and returned to his earlier efforts. He knew right away that his only two options were to either freak out and hurl hurtful words at his youngest sister, or start using the Hell out of his body. Jaune made his decision. He started swinging his way through some more amateurish sword forms with all of the strength that he could muster. 

In response to her brother’s desperate efforts, Olivia Arc shook her head, turned away and then channeled her aura to dash towards the castle. When she moved, it was with the speed and grace of a ninja, her every movement showcasing the futility of Jaune’s so called... training. 

With a grunt of both effort and frustration, Jaune heaved his metal bar in a right to left cut that ended up looking more like a homerun hit with a baseball bat than any kind of sword form. His knuckles were white and his teeth were clenched. His breathing was irregular and his face was visibly flushed with blood. He was angry. No... He was furious. He couldn’t even believe the words that had just come out of his sister’s mouth. He and Olivia has always been extraordinarily close growing up, to the point that it had felt like they could read each other’s minds. Olivia knew exactly how he felt about his parent’s ‘plan’ for him, which could only mean that she just didn’t give a damn about his desires anymore. The fact of the matter was that he’d heard Olivia’s line of reasoning hundreds of times in the past. He’d heard all of her arguments many, many times, from both of his parents and all six of his older sisters. The fact that Olivia, his twin sister, was willing to parrot those same arguments, signified the end of an era. Olivia had turned on him. She’d become a plant just like the rest of them. She was a watcher, a spy, a prison guard; she could no longer be trusted.

There was no one left... He was alone...

Dropping to the ground, Jaune began pushing himself through a gauntlet of body strengthening exercises. When he finished a set of fifty pushups, he turned over and started on the sit-ups. When those were completed, he moved on to burpees and squats. When he was finished with those, he ran laps around the courtyard until he could hardly breath and was just moments from passing out. He pushed himself to the limits that a body can reach without aura bolstered abilities, both because he needed to be prepared and because it hurt to dwell on his sister’s betrayal. 

The second reason why Jaune was struggling so hard was because he was already fourteen years old. If his parent’s hadn’t decided to protect him like a bird in a cage, he’d already be a second year student at a Hunter preparatory school. As things stood however, he was being forced to wile his life away under a gauntlet of capable but remote home tutors, while the rest of his sisters took part in the family trade. According to his parents, he was being kept safe because he was the future head of the family. According to their plan, he was supposed to treat his seven sisters as some kind of bodyguard slash mercenary force, as he climbed his way up the social/political ladder. If his parents were to be believed, Jaune was supposed to become a well-respected member of Vale’s upper aristocracy on the backs of his hard fighting sisters. Yeah... It was just as pathetic a destiny as it sounds. He might as well cut off all of his arms and legs and rely on the robot serving staff to keep him fed, watered and clean. 

What his parents seemed to be forgetting, was the fact that Jaune had witnessed the scope of the threat humanity faced for himself. Seven years earlier, Jaune had survived a Grimm attack that would’ve killed most children, and his parents had locked him behind the walls of Arc castle ever since. They expected him to be grateful. They expected him to be fearful. They expected him to be obedient. They were wrong. Jaune had just as much drive to fight the Grimm as anyone else on Remnant, and he despised the comfortable prison that his parents were forcing upon him. No... He wasn’t going to cooperate with his family’s willfully ignorant and irrational form of devotion. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be nothing more than a mascot for his sisters to rally around. No... Jaune was going to get away...

He just didn’t know how… yet. 

The primary hang-up with any escape attempt that Jaune had ever made was twofold. The first problem was that every single member of the Arc family staff were Atlas Academy trained Hunters of at least middling level. The second problem was that Jaune’s own aura was forcibly sealed away and inaccessible to him.

Ever since the Grimm attack seven years earlier, when his aura had been forcefully unlocked by a mixture of trauma and injury, Jaune had been wearing a device around his neck. It was a locked metal choker or torque of some kind, but Jaune couldn’t help but think of it as a collar. This collar continuously drained any and all aura away from his body, to the point that he might as well not even have any. At 8 Am every single morning, a pair of his father’s strongest lieutenants would place a large, opaque looking crystal into a well-protected slot in Jaune’s collar. In return, they’d always remove a radiantly bright yellow crystal that was completely saturated with Jaune’s aura. During this exchange, Jaune was always held down in a heavy duty metallic, restraint chair, that had several very thick belts and straps attached to it. Jaune’s family knew from long experience that he’d try to get away during the time that his collar was removed, which is why they’d made arrangements to do so “safely.” It was exactly this variety of sick consideration that made Jaune so desperate to get away...

Long story short, Jaune wasn’t going to be able to get away until he could figure out how to deactivate the aura suppression collar, which in turn explained why he was pushing his body so hard. He had a theory and he’d been checking it out every day for quite a while now. In the past, after the days where he’d been very physically active, the crystal that was removed from within his collar was always quite a bit brighter and more powerfully charged. Jaune suspected that the collar draws more power from him on days when he’s physically active, because his body attempts to generate aura in order to help him move and heal his various torn muscles. The fact that his aura was drawn away and fails to assist his body in any meaningful way was the only thing that made testing out his theory difficult. Jaune ached… badly, most of the time, because he didn’t heal like a modern Hunter trainee does with an aura. What that meant was that he needed to train like an athlete would in the days before aura was first discovered, slowly and painfully. He needed to continue pushing himself harder day after day, because he needed his body to generate more aura. He wanted to generate more aura because he had a suspicion... Jaune was pretty sure that he was filling the aura suppression collar’s crystals almost to max capacity, which is why they were replaced every single morning without exception. He wanted to know what would happen if he pushed the crystal beyond its capacity. Granted, there was a chance that the crystal would explode and remove his head from his shoulders, but Jaune was willing to take that risk if it meant potential freedom.

No. Jaune was not going to stop completing what his sister’s called a completely futile training regimen. He was going to continue pushing himself to the limit until either his body breaks… or the crystal does...

One Year Later...

Drip, drip, drip, grunt, groan, drip…

“So you’re going to continue giving me the silent treatment again today, Jaune?”

Grunt, groan, huff, puff...

“You know, I apologized a long damned time ago,” Olivia suddenly screamed at Jaune, as the teen continued to perform handstand pushups. “It’s cruel that you still haven’t forgiven me after all this time!”

“One hundred,” Jaune gasped out, in a quiet and tight lipped little voice, before rolling forward into a crouch. After dusting himself off, he looked up at his twin sister, only to give her a silent but meaningful stare. He held her eyes for several very long moments as he rose to his feet and shook out his arms. Olive knew exactly why he was ignoring her, so he wasn’t going to dignify her outburst with a response. 

A few weeks after their argument a year earlier, Olivia had come back begging for his forgiveness, which, of course, Jaune had given her because he lived an extremely isolated existence. Not long after that, she’d started asking him probing questions about whatever escape plans he was making. She’d tried to act as if she was a coconspirator of some kind, but she wasn’t a very good actor and they were twins. Jaune had known right away that his sister was spying for their parents and that she could no longer be trusted. In the end, that had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, at which point, he’d stopped communicating with the girl altogether. What bothered him the most about Olivia’s behaviour was the way she continually acted as if it was him that was at fault. Jaune had no patience for his sister’s delusional brand of immaturity, thus he hadn’t said a single word to her in over eleven months’ time. Well, today would be no exception. Breaking their locked gazes, Jaune rose to his feet and moved towards a nearby tree. Without a word, he jumped up to a relatively low branch and began a set of pull-ups. Hopefully, by the time he was finished punishing his body, Olivia would have gone back inside of the castle with everyone else. 

“You know what? Fine! You want to train with me Jaune, get your ass down her right this very instant!”

So much for leaving him alone... Jaune had no idea what his sister had in mind, but he was curious enough that he dropped from the tree limb with forty more pull-ups to go. Turning around, he found his sister with her arms up in a fighting stance. 

“Grab that dumbass crowbar of yours and come at me,” Olivia screamed, with a red face and white, trembling knuckles. “I’m tired of this idiocy. You’re weak... You’re weak and you’re slow and you’re defenseless! I’m going to show you just how fruitless all of your efforts are!”

While walking over to his crowbar sword, Jaune kept his eyes on his visibly furious sister. She was trembling from top to bottom and heaving for air just standing there. It was safe to assume that she wasn’t bluffing. He also knew that he didn’t stand a snowball's chance in Hell of winning a fight against his sister. She was an Arc family fighter and a candidate for admission to Atlas Huntsman Academy, which of course meant that she was extremely gifted and tough. He, on the other hand... Well, since it was taking far longer than he’d thought it would to finally break open the aura suppression collar, for all intents and purposes, he was a civilian. Actually, when Jaune really thought about it, he was worse off than a normal civilian. He had literally zero aura at his beck and call. Most normal people have at least a small amount of latent aura that aide them as they live. Well... Whatever. He’d take what he could from the beating that he was about to receive. Up until now, he had exactly zero real life fighting experience, so that would make this so-called ‘spar’ worth it one way or another. 

After picking up his ‘sword,’ Jaune moved until he was a little over ten feet away from Olivia. He had no idea what the customary start to a spar would look like, so he just took a ready stance and waited. 

You have nothing to say in defense of your strength,” Olivia asked, with angry sarcasm dripping in her tone. “No bravado or bitchy one liners to sling my way!”

“You will win,” Jaune replied in a deadpan tone of voice. “I’ll fight... and then I’ll lose.”

“If you know that much, then stop making everyone worry about you,” Olivia screamed, as she launched through the air in Jaune’s direction. 

Fast. Olivia was way too fast to keep up with, especially while carrying a heavy iron crowbar. By the time Jaune had taken just one large step to the left to flank the girl, Olivia had changed course, come in from behind and was throwing a punch at the back of Jaune’s head. Only by leaping forward into a roll was he able to protect himself from an instant knockout, but that didn’t mean that he was safe. Even as he was rolling forward, Jaune felt the weight of a mountain slam into and then through his ribs, and he was kicked across the lawn like a soccer ball. After tumbling and rolling several times, Jaune finally managed to bounce painfully back up to his feet. Unfortunately, Olivia was right there to meet him. Before Jaune could even begin lifting his arms into a defensive stance, Olivia’s fist was smashing into his nose, cracking it in half like an egg. Stars and a deafening jangling noise rattled through Jaune’s brain as his legs left the ground and he flew through the air. Then, after slamming into the stone of the courtyard wall, he dropped to the earth like a sack of potatoes. Well... shucks. That had gone even worse than he’d thought it would, and he hadn’t thought that it would go well. Suddenly, a black silhouette shielded Jaune from the evening sun, and he wondered if his adversary was going to continue her attack. 

‘You’re pathetic,” Olivia pointed out, in a dull sounding voice that was simultaneously angry and sullen.

“Of course I’m pathetic, I’m a prisoner,” Jaune groaned out, as the ringing in his ears slowly faded away. 

You’re not a prisoner,” Olivia snarled, in a voice that was equal parts raw hurt and extreme anger. We’re your family. We love you. The Grimm surround us on all sides and humanity isn’t winning. We, your sisters, are protecting you. We’d be willing to die for you. This is where you belong.”

You’re no family of mine,” Jaune snapped back, in a cold and unforgiving tone. “I renounce you, and someday I’ll be free of you. You’ll lose sight of me for just an instant, and poof, I’ll be gone.” 

“Even if you do manage to run away, we’ll track you down. We’ll keep you safe,” Olivia growled, with absolute conviction. “You won’t be in danger for long.”

“I agree that you’ll try,” Jaune spluttered, as the blood leaking from his nose ran down into his mouth and impeded his speech. “I’ll be forced to run to the farthest reaches of Remnant to truly get away from you. I’ll have to face off against bandits or slavers or the creatures of the Grimm. I’ll have no training... and then... I’ll probably die. You and the rest of your deranged little clan have made that outcome almost inevitable. Still... I can’t wait for that day to finally come. I can’t wait to be free of you…” With one last sickly little smile, Jaune buried his head into his knees and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

For about thirty seconds, neither one of them moved. Jaune stared at his feet and acted as if his entire focus was on stemming the bleeding. Finally, as if time suddenly decided to resume its forward momentum, he heard an inarticulate little sob and his sister’s shadow disappeared. 

Well... ouch. That had hurt for several different reasons. Thankfully, Jaune currently had a very, very compelling distraction. At some point during that extraordinarily one sided fight, Jaune must have been trying very hard to use quite a bit of aura, because the crystal within his collar had finally shattered. Even as he rested there against the courtyard wall, Jaune could feel the cartilage in his nose snapping back into place and his broken ribs beginning to mend. For the first time in over seven years, he had access to his aura. He was free. One thing was immediately apparent. He absolutely, positively, could not waste this opportunity.


	2. Down the Rabbit Hole

I don't own anything to do with the RWBY franchise

While slowly struggling back up to his feet, Jaune made sure to cradle his recently broken nose to conceal the fact that it was already beginning to heal. He couldn’t afford for his newly unlocked aura regen rate to be caught on camera. It was of vital importance to his plan that he be long gone by the time his family even suspected that his collar was broken. The problem with having to get away without any notice whatsoever was that his escape plan depended on several different uncontrollable factors and there were more than a few different unknowns. 

The first unknown in Jaune’s plan was whether or not he could make use of his newly freed aura to bolster his body’s baseline attributes. If one were to judge him as they would any fresh off of the assembly line human being without an aura, he’d be considered one of Atlas’s premier athletes. For almost five years he’d pushed his body to the limit every damned day and the results were obvious for anyone to see. He was extremely fit, sturdy of build and defined like an Olympian gymnast of old. On the other hand, if you judged Jaune’s strength based on a modern Hunter’s standards… Well… The fight that he’d just taken part in had been extremely telling. Professional Hunters with full use of their aura abilities can and do pick up and throw cars while they dodge and deflect bullets. Without figuring out how to use his aura, there was just no way that Jaune would be able to fight any of his father’s men. He was considered unbelievably slow, weak and clumsy without an aura and that was without factoring in his lack of offensive training. His family had very carefully kept any martial arts literature from entering Arc castle, thus, he only knew what strikes and defensive stances he’d figured out for himself. It wasn’t much to work with, but unfortunately it was all that he had. 

The second unknown was his destination. Every single night, Jaune found himself carefully ignoring a spot over the Arc Castle’s walls, where a patch of light pollution bled into the sky. This light pollution came from the south, which meant that South was the direction Jaune would need to travel. The problem with choosing this location was that he didn’t know what exactly it was or what security measures he’d encounter when he got there. 

The only thing Jaune did know for sure was that he needed to make this work. He wouldn’t be getting a second opportunity. 

Okay. First things first Jaune. Got to get to your suit of rooms and then lock the door... While holding a very surly and sulky expression on his face, Jaune held his nose and staggered through the halls. He didn’t act as if he was seriously injured, but he did act a little out of it as he moved towards his private suite of rooms. Thankfully, the sun was already setting and most of the human staff were getting ready to go to bed. Soon enough, Jaune was in his rooms, where he made quick work of bandaging his already healing nose. With that accomplished and his regen rate hidden, he jumped under some blankets on his bed and focused on his body. He knew for a fact that he was currently on not one but two well concealed cameras, so he’d have to hide while he figured out where he stood. After adopting a meditative pose under the covers, Jaune focused on his body and the warm presence of his aura within his chest. Woah. His aura. It felt like the warmth of his soul, his hopes and dreams and everything else that everyone had always said it was. It made him feel more whole and solid, as if he’d been hollow all this time and he hadn’t even known it. Now all he needed to do was learn how to channel that power throughout his body. Should be easy enough right? 

Three Hours Later…

It wasn’t easy! It was hard! 

Aura isn’t a physical part of your body like your arm or your leg. It isn’t attached to a set of nerves and synapses that receive electrical signals from your brain. What that means is that aura isn’t designed to be immediately available or user friendly in any way. It’s your spirit, thus it’s only as useful as you can will it to be. The more Jaune thought about it, the more it made sense that Hunters tend to be close minded, headstrong, stubborn and even obsessive about certain aspects of their lives. Of course they were. To become stronger, they needed to hone their spirit, their very soul, into a weapon that can affect the world around them. While it made sense that this kind of training would lead to a person having far more willpower than they’d had at the beginning, it also made sense that they’d end up having far less flexibility towards new ideas or contradictory opinions. As he continued to practice manipulating his aura, Jaune made a resolution to never become as ignorant and unhinged as the rest of his family. He could already see how a lifetime of aura training might make someone both inflexible and stubborn. 

Thankfully, there was only one aspect of aura control that Jaune needed to immediately improve upon, and it wasn’t what most people would’ve expected. Jaune was currently working on channeling his aura in and around his brain, nervous system, lungs and circulatory system. He didn’t need aura bolstered strength or speed in order for his plan to work, because he didn’t plan on fighting hordes of his father’s Henchmen. Instead, Jaune wanted to sneak out of the castle in a very unexpected way, and to do that, he needed to be able to hold his breath. 

Arc Castle was not so surprisingly… a castle. It was a castle in the traditional sense, which meant that it was a fortification first and a living arrangement second. It had tall, thick stone rampart walls, arrow slit windows and an honest to Monty drawbridge over a moat. It also contained something that is of vital importance during a siege, but taken completely for granted the rest of the time. It had a well... 

In the basement of the castle near its foundations, was a deep stone lined pit that led down to an underground river. This underground river went on for miles both to the north and to the south. While the bare minimum effort had been put into exploring this water source, purely to make sure that it didn’t contain any Grimm, once the area was confirmed safe and empty of life, it had been left to its own devices. It was perfect. It was also mostly submerged. If Jaune wanted to access these underground waterways, he was going to have to hold his breath for a very, very long time. 

Most people believe that holding your breath immediately deprives your body of oxygen which in turn kills you. This isn’t actually the case. The world record for a human holding their breath without the help of aura is 22 minutes, which is possible because the body stores plenty of extra oxygen and takes quite a while to run out. The real reason holding your breath is painful and can cause you to pass out is because your brain wants you to continue breathing. When you don’t breathe, the CO2 levels in your bloodstream start to outnumber your oxygen levels and your brain doesn’t like that. While having more CO2 in your brain isn’t immediately lethal, it isn’t the ideal climate for a brain to exist in, so the human body is equipped with ways to force you to breath. The first thing that your body does, after you spend about 30 seconds holding your breathe, is cause you both anxiety and painful contractions in your throat. At about two minutes, the muscles in your diaphragm also start to contract by themselves. Eventually, if you ignore these warning signs, your body will lose consciousness, but this isn’t because you’re dying. You’re losing consciousness because your body is forcing you to stop ignoring your body’s automatic breathing functions. Once you’ve passed out, your body will begin breathing again all by itself, and you’ll be completely unharmed. Long story short, if you sit in your living room and hold your breathe until you pass out, you’ll be fine. If you hold your breathe until you pass out while under water, your unconscious body will inhale the water, flooding your lungs and killing you. This is an important distinction and it’s also the outcome that Jaune needed to avoid. 

Within the last three hours, Jaune had slowly but surely managed to increase the time that he could hold his breath from the five minutes he’d already trained up to, to a little under half an hour. He did this by lining his lungs, heart, and brain in aura, to slow down his heart rate, relax his muscles and prevent his autonomic nervous system from rendering him unconscious. The actual biology of what he was doing was a little more complicated than he could explain even to himself. Thankfully, as it turns out, when it comes to using aura, where there’s a will there’s a way. Now all he needed to do was actually get to the castle’s basement without getting caught. 

The name of the game tonight wasn’t to get away without anyone finding out. Jaune wasn’t stupid enough to believe that the sun was going to rise the next morning without his disappearance being noticed. He knew for a fact that there were dozens of cameras and recording devices trained on his living area at all times. No… It wouldn’t take long for his presence to be missed. For that reason, the real goal at the moment was misdirection. Jaune wanted his family and the rest of their staff to believe that he’d left the castle in a conventional way, like by using a door or even by climbing the walls. What he didn’t want them to suspect was that he’d dropped down the well. In all likelihood, it wouldn’t be hard to keep his family from suspecting the well. So far as anyone else in the castle was concerned, he still didn’t have access to his aura, which meant escaping through an underground waterway was impossible. The fact of the matter was that using the well might still be impossible, but it was a risk that he was willing to take. 

After mentally compiling a list of the cameras, bugs and audio equipment that he’d managed to locate over the years, Jaune took a deep breath and reemerged from under the blankets. It was time to get moving, which meant that it was time to grab the bag of tricks. 

The bag of tricks was just that. It was a canvas sack filled to the brim with every poorly conceived escape tool, plan, and idea, that Jaune had ever thought of, and it was so useless that his parents had never even bothered to confiscate it. It was something of a family joke that Jaune would make yet another foray over the walls, where he’d be scooped up like a toddler by a squad of his father’s men. The idea behind letting him keep the bag was to make it obvious that they knew about his efforts and they weren’t concerned that he’d succeed. Their attitude was supposed to be demoralizing; it was supposed to break his spirit. It hadn’t. It only made him focus on making his plans less transparent, with several layers of varying complexity. It also gave him a bunch of props to use as a distraction. 

While making sure to avoid being seen on any of the cameras that he was aware of, Jaune began picking every lock for every security door between him and the rest of the building. As he moved, he destroyed audio recording devices, barred choke points with furniture, and just generally made a mess of the castle’s security. He didn’t go so far out of his area of the castle that his father’s men would swarm him, but he did create several different avenues of escape that they’d need to repair. Taking advantage of his familiarity with the camera rotation timing and guard patrol schedules, Jaune went out of his way to throw at least three grappling hook ropes over the walls, unlock at least two secret passageways into less travelled areas of the castle and acid burn his way through at least one sewer grate leading towards the moat. Then, when he’d dropped several different red herrings in a wide variety of locations, he very carefully snuck his way down into the basement, making sure to re-lock all of the doors behind him. 

With the closing of one last recessed cellar door, Jaune found himself in the catacombs that make up the castle foundation and the storage rooms that are kept within. A lot of stuff that would never be used was kept down here, and Jaune would’ve liked to browse if he’d had the time. He didn’t. Within the next few minutes, he was going to be swimming his way through a fully submerged cave system. Even if he were to find a full set of armor or a sword in one of these crates, he’d be forced to leave it behind. With that in mind, Jaune made a beeline for his actual destination. 

In the lowest area of an empty room built to contain just one thing, was a stone lined pit. This room only existed in case of emergencies as the cobwebs lining the walls and ceiling could attest to. Suspended over the circular pit was a metal frame holding a large bucket on a rope and pulley system. While it would’ve been nice for Jaune to just use this rope to scale his way down the pit, he knew very well that to do so would be a mistake. He couldn’t afford to leave any evidence of his presence whatsoever, which meant that he was going to have to climb down the hard way. Thankfully, the stones lining of the walls of the well were pitted and uneven, which offered his fingers plenty of purchase. 

At first Jaune planned on performing some quick stretches and even a little bit of meditation to slow down his heart rate. As it turns out, he didn’t have the time. Somewhere up above Jaune’s head, a warning klaxon started warbling through the stone, indicating that his absence had already been noticed. With a deep breath and a sigh, Jaune sat on the edge of the well and looked down into the darkness below. He couldn’t see where the pit ended, but he knew that it was a long, long way down. He also knew that the well chute opened up at the bottom into a larger underground basin of some kind, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to just climb back up. It didn’t matter. He was committed and it was time. After tying his crowbar sword to his shoulder using some rope from his bag of tricks, Jaune slipped off the edge, turned around and hung off the lip of the well. Then, with his fingers clawing into cracks between the various stones, he began inching his way down into the dark. 

Less than half a minute later, Jaune was deep enough into the well that he no longer had any light to work with. On the one hand he’d already known that this was going to happen, on the other hand, he hadn’t anticipated just how much anxiety being blind would cause him. It couldn’t be helped though. Jaune had been too afraid of revealing his real intentions to try and steal a waterproof light or something. No. Any light that he might have tried to bring with him would only have notified his parents that he wanted to go somewhere dark. It was a risk that he wasn’t willing to take, so he was just going to have to suck it up. Slowly but surely, Jaune moved by feel alone and eventually he found himself calming back down. 

At some point, Jaune suddenly realized that he had no idea how long he’d been hanging by his arms. All he knew for sure was that his fingers were starting to hurt like hell, his knees were bruised, and he was filthy from top to bottom. He was also pretty sure that he was beginning to hallucinate. He was beginning to catch small motes of light floating in the air all around him, where they were flickering in and out of existence. Since he was well aware that he was over fifty feet below the earth and not in an RPG fairy field or anything, the small motes of light didn’t make any sense. Nevertheless, the motes of light weren’t going anywhere, and they were bright enough that he was having an easier time seeing where he was going. All in all, things were on the up and up, even as Jaune continued to go down and down. Then it finally happened. Jaune stuck his right leg further down, seeking to find a jagged piece of stone to leverage his toes into, only to find nothing but open air instead. He’d made it, he was there. 

Directly below Jaune was the basin where the underground river met the well. Now all he needed to do was figure out how large the drop was and how deep the water was. It’d be a waste to make it this far only to break his back on a rock at the bottom. Craning his neck, Jaune looked down and saw that the flickering motes of light were illuminating a lot of the area. The problem was that they were illuminating what looked like a ten meter drop to the inky black water below. There was no way to tell for sure how deep the water was, which was a problem because he wasn’t the type to take his chances. Whenever possible, Jaune liked to have a backup plan B and a fallback plan C for when that plan failed. With that in mind, Jaune started thinking of ways he could decrease the risk of what he was about to do. He needed a landing strategy of some kind... The idea of creating a landing strategy made Jaune smile, because it felt like he was finally moving in the right direction. He was going to be a Hunter. He was going to help people and be the master of his own destiny. Now, what he needed to do most was figure out where his skills lay. So far, it seemed that Jaune was pretty good at manipulating his aura throughout his own body. While it had taken him three hours to figure it out, Jaune knew that most people trained their auras for years before they saw noticeable amounts of improvement. On the other hand, at no time since the moment that he first freed his aura, had Jaune experienced some kind of Eureka moment regarding his Semblance. Having an offensively powerful or useful Semblance would’ve been a game changer for sure, but of course Jaune wasn’t expecting his life to be that convenient. 

The textbook definition of a Semblance is an aura fueled ability that’s almost always unique to an individual and usually has a lot to do with their character as a person. Olivia, Jaune’s twin sister, could create blades of energy that protrude from any part of her body. Several of his sisters had explained that Olivia was extremely shy and standoffish when she first met new people, so having a prickly Semblance wasn’t too much of a surprise. While Olive’s Semblance was seriously badass, it wasn’t even the most powerful amongst his sisters. Petunia, Jaune’s eldest sister, could more than septuple (X7) the gravity being applied on any object or person that she desired within a 3 meter-wide circumference of her body. What this meant was if you let her get close enough, she could make it so that just staying on your feet felt like you were trying to carry a thousand pounds, give or take a couple hundred. Needless to say, Petunia Arc very rarely had to actually use her physical weapons on anyone at all. All she really had to do was close the distance and bam her opponent hit the floor. Jaune liked to think that his sister had that particular Semblance because she liked to impose her will on the people around her (him being a prime example). It was an unkind and inaccurate judgment to make, because the members of the Arc family were generally both kind and generous. Truly, if Jaune’s family had allowed him the personal freedom to make any of his own decisions, they’d have been just about perfect. As things stood however, their specific brand of ‘devotion’ felt more like the out of control fanaticism of a cult. 

Well... Jaune had no idea what his Semblance was yet, but he did know that he could make use of his Aura. He’d had some success bolstering different parts of his body such as his lungs, heart and brain, so now all he had to do was focus on doing the same with his legs and back. Over the next fifteen minutes, Jaune hung there on the wall as his breathing slowed, and he focused on his aura. Soon enough, he could feel the warmth of his soul gathering around the bones of his back and legs, and he knew that it was time to act. Without a second thought, he let go of the wall and dropped down towards the water below. 

Splash!

The water was deep and cold, and there were no signs of back breaking rocks in any direction. No matter. Jaune still considered his earlier efforts a good use of time. He had every intention of learning different ways to manipulate his aura, and learning by doing was an efficient way of going about it. After swimming back up towards the surface, hindered somewhat by the metal crowbar hanging on his back, he began treading water as he looked around the room. The well basin was quite pretty all things considered. The walls and roof of the cave were covered in a bioluminescent moss of some kind, and this moss was the source of the light motes. It had the effect of making the room a vibrant, if a little bit eerie, greenish blue color. To Jaune’s right was a tunnel entrance heading North, and the direction that the water was coming from. To the South was yet another tunnel where the water was leaving the room. Both of these tunnels were pitch black after just a few feet due to the fact that they were almost entirely submerged under water. They were also only a little larger than a meter in circumference. Yikes... The trip down that tunnel was going to be a very, very, tight fit. 

As he stared at the pitch-black hole in the wall of the cave, Jaune shivered from top to bottom in a moment of completely justifiable terror. Of course he was afraid. He was about to trust his fate completely to chance and hail Mary himself down an underwater tunnel to Maidens only know where. Deep down inside where his anger and insecurities lay, a part of Jaune liked the fact that if he died within the next half an hour his body would never be found. A spiteful little part of him appreciated the fact that win lose or draw, his family would always think that he’d gotten away. Pyrrhic victories weren’t necessarily Jaune’s style, but in the end, if it was all he could get, then he’d take it. Shaking off the random moment of morbid satisfaction, he swam to the right of the Southern tunnel, crawled up onto a conveniently smooth boulder and lay down on his back. He couldn’t afford to half-ass his preparations this time. He needed to be Zen, like unbelievably Zen, when he finally entered that tunnel. His ability to remain calm would have a direct impact on how long he could keep his heart rate low and hold his breath. Closing his eyes, Jaune let his thoughts drift away as he focused on his breathing and the cool comfort of the water against his legs. 

It was his focus on the water that ended up saving his life...

Just as Jaune was sliding into a really deep state of meditation, he began to feel small, gentle ripples in the water, lapping against his calves. It started feeling more like he was soaking his legs on a beach, rather than a pool of water far beneath the earth. Waves are usually caused by wind or tides or seismic activity on the ocean floor. They definitely don’t just happen for no reason deep underground… With a gasp of sudden realization, Jaune slammed his hands down into the rocks at his sides and threw himself to the right. After rolling painfully across several of the rocks lining the pool, Jaune splashed back into the water and kicked himself to the other side of the outlet tunnel. Only then did he get a chance to open his eyes and look at what he was running away from. Monty Oum! He’d just barely made it in time! As soon as he’d vacated the spot, a mostly black blur had slammed into his boulder and uncountable rows of serrated teeth were scraping a hole into the boulder. It was a Grimm. It was an aquatic Grimm of some kind. Nothing was supposed to be down here, but it was, and it was huge! 

Red hot adrenaline coursed through Jaune’s veins, rendering his most recent state of calm a thing of the past. Big. The Grimm was big and it was spiny and it was slippery... The Grimm was a Cthulhu type tentacle monster with a little bit of everything thrown in just for kicks. Its mask was the only white part of its entire body and was just a jagged plate of bone surrounding its glowing red eyes. While the creature’s mask looked tiny on its throbbing bulbous head, its mouth completely dominated the landscape. Its mouth was a sewer grate sized sucking hole, ringed with hundreds and hundreds of undulating teeth. The Grimm was a nightmare in the deep, a true eldritch horror. 

“Less than an hour of freedom and I already have an ‘I told you so’ coming my way,” Jaune ruefully drawled out, as the Grimm spat out a massive chunk of rock and swiveled in his direction. When the beast located him again, it stared down at him with a silent and eerie form of malevolence. It seemed that this particular Grimm thought that its prey was trapped like a rat, so it was in no hurry to pounce. The beast’s overconfidence was a blessing. Jaune used every second of extra time to drag his hands along the various stones lining the pool, until he caught ahold of a five or six-inch-long jagged rock. The rock wasn’t the most inspiring weapon in the world, but at the moment what he needed more than anything else was a distraction. With that in mind, Jaune focused as much aura as he could into both his throwing arm and the rock itself and then he heaved it towards the Grimm with every ounce of strength that he could muster. With a wet thud and a furious screech, the rock scored a baseball sized hole into the orbital bone of the Grimm’s faceplate, sending several shards of bone and rock directly into one of its boiling red eyes. Jaune never even noticed the damage that he’d just inflicted. He was far too busy. Instead, he spent the next half a second tearing off the ropes that were holding the crowbar to his back and pulling it in front of his body. With his primary weapon now in hand and a half-baked plan forming in mind, Jaune immediately dove sideways through the air towards the Southern tunnel. 

While the Grimm wasn’t sophisticated enough a creature to even begin to anticipate Jaune’s actions, its momentary pause made it obvious that it was at least a little bit caught off guard. Then that split second ended and the beast exploded back into action. With an outraged hiss of expelled air and spittle, the Grimm pounced down towards Jaune’s still airborn body, intending to slam him against the cistern wall before he could slip away. What the Grimm didn’t expect to happen was to have a sharpened bar of metal slam into the right side of its mouth, where it pierced a hole directly into the soft tissue of its jaw. Without a moment of hesitation the Grimm attempted to bite down on both the metal bar and Jaune’s right arm, only to recoil in pain as the other end of the crowbar pierced into the other side of its mouth. All of the sudden, the Grimm found itself trying to chomp down on both ends of a solid metal bar that was digging deeper and deeper into the soft inner lining of its mouth. Every time the Grimm attempted to force its mouth closed, it only managed to push the seemingly unbreakable metal bar deeper into its flesh, tearing at the muscle fibers and tendons within. Pain and anger were clear to see in the beast’s eyes, as it sought to tear at its enemy and was repeatedly denied. Then Jaune saw the beast go into a frenzy at point blank range. As a smoky red aura enveloped the Grimm, it seemed to forget all about the fact that its mouth was jammed wide open and it was bleeding a black ichor into the water. With a deep basso bellow that shook the very air of the cave, the Grimm surged forward, slammed Jaune under the water and then began forcing him down the fully submerged exit tunnel at a completely ridiculous pace.

Jaune barely had the time to draw in just one last desperate breath as the Grimm slammed into his body and began pushing him against every surface that the tunnel had to offer. His attempts to reassure himself that things were going exactly as planned didn’t get him very far, as the Grimm’s razor sharp incisors sawed into the aura around his forearms and his body was slammed against the roof, the walls and the floor of the tunnel. While it was obvious that they were moving down the tunnel at fantastic speeds, Jaune’s aura was being chipped away at an equally rapid rate, and he didn’t have a single method of improving the situation. He also wasn’t going to be able to hold his breath for even a tenth of the time that he’d intended, now that his heart was racing in his chest like a dust engine. At this rate, he wasn’t going to be able to stave off unconsciousness, he wasn’t going to survive the length of time that he needed to reach his destination. As a desperate desire to do something, anything, welled up within Jaune, he found himself pouring channeling his remaining aura throughout every single cell that made up his body, seeking to protect a state of being rather than any specific organ or limb. It was as if Jaune was trying to hold onto a moment in time rather than a physical object or a thing. He wanted to preserve his body as it was in that specific moment, complete with the oxygen in his lungs, the skin covering his muscles and the blood flowing within his veins. For an endless period of time that was more than likely just a single minute, Jaune closed his eyes and held on for dear life both physically and spiritually. Then, with a thunderous roar, Jaune was lifted up and out of the water and sent flying through the air like a cannonball. 

He was above water. He was alive... He was airborne.

Opening his eyes, Jaune looked down at a small pond where the Cthulhu Grimm was thrashing its tentacles in an attempt to follow him up into the air. Then, Jaune saw that he was currently falling towards a stretch of tarmac on what appeared to be a Bullhead pad of some kind. Last but not least, Jaune saw that he wasn’t alone. There were about a half a dozen people wearing his father’s livery that were turning in his direction with looks of surprise on their faces. Well... Shit. Jaune wasn’t going to be able to fight off his father’s Hunter level vassals, and he knew it. Thankfully, if he played his cards right, Jaune didn’t think he’d end up being anyone’s primary concern. What Jaune needed most right now was a distraction, and the massive, enraged, Cthulhu Grimm, was perfect for the job. 

After flipping in the air in order to point his legs towards the rapidly approaching ground, Jaune whistled and pointed at the massive Grimm that was pulling itself out of the tunnel. “That’s only the first of nearly a dozen of those creatures,” he yelled out, even as he crashed to the ground and rolled painfully across the concrete. Rising back to his feet, Jaune pointed back at the Cthulhu Grimm and began barking orders at his father’s vassals as if he had the right to it. “This foul creature and its spawn were disturbed from their slumber when I explored the cave system! They’re stampeding out of the tunnel and intend to tear us all limb from limb. Get into a defensive formation right this very second if you value your lives and continued employment.”

It may have been the commanding tone of Jaune’s voice, it may have been the inherent danger that the Cthulhu Grimm represented, Hell, it may even have been his threat about their continued employment, but the airfield employees immediately launched into action without a second’s hesitation. Within just a ten second period of time, the group of them had created a defensive formation and were moving forward to confront the growing mass of spikes, teeth and tentacles. Jaune nodded both his admiration and respect towards his father’s people as they pulled out their swords and guns and moved ever closer towards the threat. Then, when all of the men and women where passed him and were entirely focused on what they thought was the first wave of several ancient Grimm, Jaune slipped backwards and started moving quietly across the airfield. He didn’t stop to look back at the sound of massive tentacles crushing holes into tarmac, Hunter’s yells of aggression or even a Grimm’s pain fueled roar. Self-discipline was one of Jaune’s only strengths, and it was being put to the test with every step that he took. He needed to keep his eye on the prize. He needed to continue moving. 

Soon enough, Jaune found himself walking up under the tree trunk shaped wings of a VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) Bullhead. Interestingly enough, he technically knew how to fly one of these airships as he’d managed to study several different flying manuals over the years. Too bad no amount of theoretical knowhow could make up for his current lack of real world experience. No matter. Jaune wasn’t trying to do anything as dramatic as committing Grand Theft Airship anyway. He wanted to disappear. What that meant was that he needed to continue with the distractions to buy himself as much time as possible. 

Jogging to the far side of the airfield, Jaune started crashing into the surrounding woods as if he was the clumsiest hiker on the face of the planet. He needed to create a highly visible trail of broken foliage that his father’s Huntsman could follow, so that they’d get stuck searching the entire forest for him. After smashing his way about two hundred feet into the trees, Jaune began decreasing the amount of damage that he was doing to his surroundings, until finally he was moving very, very carefully to leave as little tracks as possible. Finally, when the light from the airfield was only visible as a grey cloud on the skyline, Jaune leapt up against the bare trunk of a pine tree and wrapped his body around its length. This particular type of tree didn’t have any branches until it began sprouting needles much higher up in the tree. The tree’s lack of branches was about to make it both uncomfortable and highly strenuous for Jaune to climb it. Thankfully, this upcoming struggle was also going to be the reason why Jaune’s trick was going to work. Very few of his father’s people believed he was anything but a soft, pampered, weakling of a boy. Not one of them would believe that he’d subject himself to a pine needle hell such as the one above his head. Well… They were wrong. 

After about three frantic minutes spent climbing by hugging onto the tree trunk like a sloth, Jaune finally managed to wiggle his body up into the dense foliage level of the pine. Then, after just a few moments spent catching his breath, he launched himself through the air towards another pine tree that was growing nearby. Ouch... He’d been right. The needles pressing into his skin hurt like Hell even with his diminished aura protecting him. It was still worth it. 

Even as he silently climbed higher and transitioned hand over hand to another tree, Jaune heard several footsteps and some whispering down below. It appeared that his father’s vassals were finally tracking his footsteps deeper into the woods. There was no way of knowing just how good these Hunters were at following tracks or how long they’d fall for his ruse, but one thing Jaune did know for sure was that he was on a time limit. When the scattered footsteps and muttering below finally moved on, Jaune started moving with as much haste as he dared. Realistically, there was a fifty/fifty chance that the Hunters down below were already wise to his ploy and were just waiting for him to make some noise. If that was the case, then Jaune was basically screwed, but that didn’t mean he wanted to make it easy on them. He moved carefully and quietly as he drifted from tree to tree back towards the airfield. The trip took a long damned time, and it wasn’t without mishap. At one point Jaune slipped off of a particularly tree sap covered branch and just barely managed to catch himself before plummeting to the ground below. There was also the time when he managed to take a pine needle directly into the eye, blinding himself and forcing his aura to heal him. Finally, after Monty only knows how long, Jaune found himself perched in a massive tree that was lining the airfield and staring down at the Bullhead below. Coincidentally, he could also see the Cthulhu Grimm’s corpse slowly turning into a black mist off in the distance. Booyah. Score one for the humans.

At the moment, the Bullhead was nothing but a dark grey silhouette in the middle of an empty airfield. It wasn’t time to move yet. 

No one owns a Bullhead for no reason. They’re difficult to buy, expensive to maintain and stored in an airfield hanger which is also expensive to maintain. There was very little chance that the Arc family owned a Bullhead that just sat around doing nothing. The problem was that Jaune couldn’t just sit in this tree for half a week until this particular airship was put to use. Then, as more and more time went by, Jaune began to realize the reality of his situation. Until someone eventually came to operate that airship, he wasn’t going anywhere. Settling in for the long haul, Jaune lay back across a juncture of tree branches and let his fatigue carry him to sleep.


	3. The Lab

I don't own anything to do with the RWBY franchise 

It was approximately three in the morning when a low and insistent thrumming sound roused Jaune from unconsciousness. Conveniently enough, the noise turned out to be the Bullhead’s engines being brought to life. With lips that were suddenly as dry as a desert, Jaune leaned out through his pine needle camouflage, to look down at the activity below. One, lone, hard suffering, hanger attendant, was pushing an overlarge crate up the Bullhead’s cargo ramp, as the pilot in the cockpit completed his preflight checks. It was clearly business as usual for these two men, which meant that as soon as that cargo hold was closed the Bullhead was going to take off. The coast would only be clear for a few seconds at the most, and he wasn’t going to get a second opportunity. With that in mind, Jaune started warming up his body by wiggling his arms and legs at his sides and manipulating his aura throughout his muscles. He needed to be able to move. He needed to be prepared. It was time, it was time, it was…. Now!

As the Hanger attendant walked away from the Bullhead’s cargo bay to retrieve another crate from the Hanger, Jaune kicked off the tree trunk as hard as he could, launching himself through the air. He was falling from upwards of ten meters, so he didn’t expect to land without taking any damage. He didn’t care in the least. He could take it. More important than whatever damage he was about to receive, Jaune needed to land silently, which meant that he needed to spread out his impact as much as possible and keep his vocalizations to a minimum. For the second time in only a day, Jaune found himself spreading his aura throughout his entire body with no specific aim in mind other than to preserve his current state. He wanted to hold himself together as if he was wearing an armored suit or a shield. There was a very good chance that he was manually forcing his aura to do something that it does automatically, but Jaune didn’t want to take any chances. He grabbed ahold of his aura, spread it throughout his entire body like a mold and then grit his teeth as he forced everything to remain in place. After about 5 seconds spent falling, Jaune’s feet finally made contact with the concrete of the airfield. In an instinctual move to decrease the damage that his legs were about to take, Jaune immediately bent his knees. Then, in the split second that followed, he allowed his body to pitch forward, dropped his right shoulder into a roll, rolled again and just kept rolling as he clenched his mouth around the pain. Several small cracks and pops met his ears as his bones bent and fractured, but Jaune knew right away that his injuries were nowhere near as bad as they should’ve been. Then, when he pushed himself back up to his feet, he found that he could still walk, if with a limp in his right leg. It was far more than he deserved after the stunt that he’d just pulled. 

Biting down on a strong desire to whimper in pain, Jaune hugged his dislocated left arm and hobbled up the ramp into the Bullhead. He’d done it. He’d managed to get inside his getaway vehicle without getting caught. Now all he needed to do was find a decent spot to hide. That Hanger Attendant would be back any second with another crate, and Jaune needed to make himself invisible before that happened. Looking around the cargo bay, Jaune cast out for anything that might serve as a shelter. Then he saw it and his blood ran cold. To the back of the cargo hold, there was a webbing covered crate that was full to the brim with some very familiar glowing crystals. They were the same exact crystals that were removed from his aura suppression collar every morning. They were also the commodity that was being shipped to whatever destination this Bullhead was heading. His aura... Years and years of Jaune’s collected aura, was being used as a fuel source or a battery of some kind... Shit. Dammit. Very suddenly Jaune was losing it. How dare his parents benefit from his captivity! How dare they use his aura without his permission! As his current reality settled back onto his shoulders, Jaune remembered that he definitely didn’t have the time to have a temper tantrum. Launching himself towards the crate of crystals, Jaune pulled the webbing aside, slipped inside and submerged himself as much as possible. He wiggled and squirmed until he was deep within the crystals and then he raked the webbing so that it would be back to its original position. He didn’t stop wiggling his body lower until his butt was pressing against the bottom of the crate and the bulk of the crystals were on top of him.

Not even fifteen seconds later, a grunting and groaning sound notified Jaune that the Hanger Attendant was pushing a second crate up into the cargo hold. He held his breath in order to lay perfectly still, forced his mind to calm, and he waited. The grunting and groaning came closer along with the dull nails on chalkboard sound that the crate was creating against the floor. Finally, with a sigh of accomplishment, the Hanger Attendant wiped his hands clean and shuffled back down the access ramp. Less than two minutes later, the cargo bay door was closing all by itself and the Bullhead engines were starting to pick up. 

Very quietly from within his crate, Jaune started completely freaking out. He’d done it! He was free! He was getting away! Hundreds of new freedoms and just as many fears suddenly became far more realistic than they’d ever been in the past, but Jaune was finally free, and he was also making plans. First things first... He needed to decide whether or not it was worth the risk to find out what his aura was powering...

Over the next three hours, Jaune found himself trailing off into a semi-conscious doze, as his aura attempted to heal his various injuries and fight off a strong bought of persistent motion sickness. The only company that he had was the aura crystals resting against his body, that pulsed, seemingly with a life all of their own. 

_______________________________________

As scientist and inventor Pietro Polendina pushed a hover sled down a service hallway, he found himself frowning in a very out of character fashion. During the ten plus years that he’d spent working for the Atlesian Military, he’d found himself repeatedly at loggerheads with the Senior Officer that amounted to both his boss and his patron. While Pietro and General James Ironwood did get along so far as personalities went, Pietro was very liberal by nature and that consistently caused a rift between the two of them. Over and over again, Pietro found himself hurling bitchy little one liners at the General, regarding Atlas’s resource collection policies, specifically the waste they accrued and the immoral work practices they allowed. He beleaguered his employer to do something, anything, about social issues such as the systematic exploitation of the Faunus by the SDC (Schnee Dust Company). He vehemently proclaimed that any nation that can’t stand truly united against its enemies doesn’t deserve to stand at all. He continued to make these arguments despite the fact that his employer was essentially powerless to change anything. It was an unfair situation to put the General in, both because the man was firmly entrenched within a strict military chain of command and because the Grimm didn’t give a damn about social justice. The creatures of the Grimm were pressing in on every side, and it was only the advent of dust technology that was keeping them at bay. Dust barriers protected humanities’ walls and foundations, Dust cannons and guns made up humanities’ offensive arsenal, Dust fueled every airship that flew or tank that rolled, Dust fought Grimm borne diseases and Dust healed the injured. The unstable elements contained within dust comprised the single most vital weapon humanity possessed in the war against the Grimm. Dust meant survival. It could come as no surprise that General Ironwood wasn’t picky about how such a precious commodity was collected. 

No. Pietro didn’t truly expect his patron to pull off some miracle of social reform under their current circumstances. In fact, the real reason that he was currently scowling wasn’t because of General Ironwood at all. It was because of how his current actions were flying in the face of his ideals. At the moment, Pietro was on his way to his lab’s airship complex, where he was about to pick up a rather large stockpile of an extremely rare substance. Any minute from now, he was going to take custody of a full crate of retrofitted dust crystals that were filled to capacity with aura. Pietro wasn’t even going to try to fool himself into thinking this aura had been given voluntarily. There wasn’t a single person on all of Remnant who would sacrifice approximatel 15 years’ worth of their aura of their own free will. Someone, somewhere, was being held captive, where they were being systematically drained of their aura like a human battery. The very idea that a human could have the light of their soul stripped away from their body made Pietro shiver in an almost instinctual form of revulsion. On the other hand, he considered what these crystals could provide him of absolutely vital importance, so he wasn’t going to ask any questions. 

In the end, there was no use denying what his current actions were revealing about his character. Pietro Polendina was a self-righteous, amoral, hypocrite…

Putting his emotional turmoil aside for the moment, Pietro descended an access ramp to the airfield and looked out to the pre-dawn skyline. He was right on time. While at the moment it was only a black dot on the horizon, the Bullhead that contained his package was already there, approaching at a rather slow and deliberate speed. Pietro tried to be patient. His laboratory was located deep within the confines of an Atlesian military base, which meant that the pilot of that Bullhead would be following some pretty specific directions. Nonetheless, Pietro found himself drumming the arms of his grav sled in impatience. It didn’t help. 

Finally, no less than fifteen minutes later, the Bullhead was finally settling onto the tarmac of the airfield and the cargo bay door of the Bullhead was lowered to the tarmac. Pietro didn’t wait for a Hanger Attendant to arrive before he got to work. He’d come with a grav sled of his own and a strong desire to skip all of the paperwork. The cargo in this Bullhead was his burden to bear alone. He had zero interest in involving other people. 

Pushing the Grav Sled up the ramp, Pietro entered the poorly lit recesses of the cargo bay. Turning on the lights wasn’t going to be necessary, because there were only two crates within and both had been requisitioned purely to be used in his lab. The most finicky part would be moving the crates onto his sled without upsetting their contents. He had a remote on hand that would let him control the airfield’s robotic grav lift. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t know how to operate the appendage (He’d designed the damned thing in the first place), The problem was that he had no finesse with the machine whatsoever. He was clumsy by nature and that clumsiness reflected in the jerky and spastic movements of the robot arm. Nevertheless, Pietro soon had both of the crates sitting on the grav sled, with only minor amounts of wear and tear on their wooden surfaces. 

Whistling in satisfaction, Pietro began pushing the rather beaten up crates through the halls leading back towards his lab. His earlier moral dilemma was long forgotten now that he was free to make progress in his project. It was time. Hot damn, it was time to create a life...

Ouch. Whoever just unloaded the crate that Jaune was hiding in was not the gentle type. His freshly aura regenerated body was feeling distinctly beaten up again after being shaken like a stone in a bucket and then dumped onto a sled at near terminal velocity. Thankfully, he’d managed to keep his pained moans to a minimum and hadn’t been overheard. The last thing he needed right now was to allow the sadistic person operating the robot arm to notice whimpering coming from within his delivery. He needed to tough it out until this mystery person had to use the bathroom or something. 

The trip through the various halls of the laboratory was both uneventful and uninformative. Jaune tried to stealthily peer out through the crystals surrounding his body, but he didn’t see anything but smooth white walls and blinding florescent lights. Sterile was the word that immediately came to mind. The facility was completely devoid of life. It was an atmosphere that made sense considering the fact that these people were willing to make use of another person’s aura power to fuel their projects. Jaune figured that the staff here would have to be very cold and scientific if they were willing to commit such an atrocity. Well, no matter. Jaune would never have to get to know them. He was going to get out of here as soon as an opportunity presented itself. 

When a larger than normal door loomed up over the crate that Jaune was hiding in, he gulped at what he was looking at. There was a dual biometric scanner, pin code entry panel next to this door that would be a bitch and a half to rewire. It wasn’t that Jaune couldn’t figure it out, the problem was that it would take time and it would set off Tamper alarms on the Security system. This was going to be rough...

After placing his hand on the biometric scanner, a stocky scientist type punched in a long series of numbers and the door began sliding open. Jaune felt his body beginning to tremble in anxiety as the 5 inch-thick solid steel doors slid back into place with a sharp pneumatic hiss. It was official. He was trapped again. The only significant difference this time was that his captors weren’t aware of him yet. He had an advantage this time. He also had his aura. Now he needed to make a plan... 

Smash, smash, smash!!

Or not... 

Jaune’s crate had just been unceremoniously dumped off of the antigravity sled it’d been resting on and its contents had been spilled all over the floor of the lab. Unfortunately, that included Jaune, who found himself sprawled out on the ground at a gaping scientist’s feet. 

Jaune stared up at the scientist, the scientist stared down at Jaune. Slowly but surely Jaune collected a few of the aura crystals in his hands and waited for the scientist to attack. He didn’t. 

“It’s you, isn’t it,” the scientist asked in a deadly serious whisper. “It’s your aura contained within these crates.”

Since the scientist didn’t look threatening, Jaune took a moment to look around the rest of the lab. No one. They were alone. He didn’t want to do it but Jaune figured he could kill this man if he had to. Rising to his feet, Jaune squared up into the closest approximation of a fighting stance as he knew. 

In the moments that followed, the scientist looked alarmed that Jaune was showing signs of hostility, and he floundered clumsily to push a button on a remote that he was carrying. All of the sudden and all at once, an absurd amount of robotic guns and laser cannons appeared from within the lab’s walls to train their sites on him. 

Well... Damn...

Jaune’s hands slowly dropped back to his sides as he realized that the fight was already over. The only chance he’d ever had was to attack the scientist before the man even knew that he was there. It would seem Jaune wasn’t cold and calculating enough. He wasn’t bloodthirsty enough. He’d lost his one and only opportunity. Now his situation had changed dramatically, and Jaune found himself casting out for reasons that he shouldn’t be killed outright. Then he thought of something and he felt his heart start to pound within his chest. He didn’t like what he was about to do, but it didn’t seem like he had a choice in the matter. He had to tell the truth...

“I..I’m the... source... of the aura contained within these crystals,” Jaune admitted in a meek little voice, while looking down at his feet. “I finally managed to escape my captors by stowing away within that crate. I’ll do... anything... to keep from going back to those... people. I’ve been strapped to a large metallic chair by thick leather straps every single day since I was only seven years old. I’ve been kept captive for over half of my life, while those crystals have been extracting all of my aura.” While he was massively misrepresenting just how long a time he spent stuck to a chair everyday, Jaune’s words were all technically accurate, and he was attempting to garner some sympathy. Now it was time to see if his ploy was getting him anywhere with the scientist... Looking back up at the unknown man’s face, Jaune was unbelievably surprised by what he found. 

The scientist was weeping thick torrents of tears that were dripping into the cardigan under his lab coat. Soon enough, the man collapsed to the concrete of the floor, sobbing openly. Judging by how enthusiastic and honest the man’s weeping was, it didn’t look like he was going to stop anytime soon. 

Monty Oum. This scientist was clearly a softy on a monumental scale... Jaune felt his heart rate slowing down again as he took a seat on the floor in front of the man and patted his shoulder consolingly. Very suddenly, he wasn’t all that concerned about getting sent back to the castle…

“I’m... I’m so sorry.” The Scientist blubbered as he wiped his lab coat against his eyes. “I knew. I knew that it had to be something like that, but I was too fixated on getting my hands on the aura crystals to look any further! I’m a terrible person!” 

“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s alright, Jaune soothed, in the same calming voice that he used on his sisters when they were upset. “I’m sure there’s a good reason for your actions, and you aren’t the person who made my captors do what they’ve done. If my aura didn’t go to you then it would’ve gone to someone else instead. At the very least you don’t appear to want to send me back.”

“No, never, I could never,” the scientist cried out, as if he was horrified by the thought. “Strapped to a chair and stripped of your soul for over half of your life! I could never take part in that. It’s… it’s abhorrent! It was bad enough when I thought it was an adult that was being drained, but a child, a seven-year-old child! It’s too much!”

For the next couple of minutes, Jaune just sat there with his legs crossed, patting a middle aged scientist on the back. As surreal as the situation was, he was extremely happy with this outcome and wouldn’t have changed a thing. Finally, the scientist appeared to be calming down, and Jaune figured it was time for him to appeal to the man. 

“Since you appear to mean me no harm,” Jaune hedged quietly. “I was hoping that I could make a deal with you. I want you to shelter me and arrange an identity for me. I don’t care about luxury as long as I can experience some personal freedoms. I also don’t expect charity. I don’t know precisely what level of education I have if I’m being perfectly honest, but I do understand the mechanisms behind most of the machinery within this room.”

The scientist looked up from his hands and stared at Jaune with a confused expression. “You... You have an education?”

The scientist appeared to be a little bit skeptical, and Jaune wasn’t surprised. The man clearly thought that he’d been strapped to a chair doing nothing for the last 7 years. “Yes, I’m extremely well read,” Jaune assured the man with a nod. “I’ve spent a not inconsiderable amount of my life reading textbooks and technical manuals and such to stave off boredom.”

“I suppose they would need to provide consistent stimulus if they desired to keep the subject sane and healthy,” the scientist mused as if to himself. Then he looked up at Jaune and nodded his head. “Well, you needn’t worry about going back to where you came from. I have no intention of revealing your presence here in my lab. However… It is going to be a bit tricky getting you out of here...”

“High security laboratory in the middle of a Military installation,” Jaune guessed with a sigh...

“Yes… How did you know?” The scientist looked impressed, but he also looked just a little bit wary. 

“That door that we just came through was state of the art security tech, I can’t imagine a civilian facility that would have any interest in harnessing aura energy, and I have about twelve different automated weapon platforms aimed at me as we speak,” Jaune explained in a casual voice. 

“Uh… Oh, oh, dear me, I’m sorry again!” As quickly as possible the scientist depressed a button on his remote and the weapons around the room retracted back into their hidden cubbies. 

That’s fine,” Jaune assured the man with a wave. “I just wanted you to understand how I might have guessed...” 

“No, yes, I mean I understand,” the scientist assured with a wave. “You’re also correct. For now, at least, you’ll have to remain here in my lab, until I can arrange a fake identity for you.”

That’s about what I expected,” Jaune began, as he rose to his feet and offered his hand. “My apologies. Circumstances being what they are, I haven’t had the opportunity to introduce myself yet. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s wise for you to learn my real name. I’ll have to fashion a pseudonym for myself so that I can stop being rude.”

“I can see why you might feel that way,” the scientist assured in a quiet voice. “My name is Dr. Pietro Polendina. I’m an inventor under the employ of the Atlas military.”

“I see... While I think about a name I can use, I have several questions I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind.” Jaune gestured at the crystals at their feet. “Let’s start with this. Why do you have such a need for my aura energy?”

For the very first time since Jaune met Pietro, the man smiled and it completely transformed his face. “Ah that’s right. I forgot because we never get visitors here. By now she’ll be just dying of curiosity. I have someone to introduce to you” 

Jaune looked all around the wide open and expansive laboratory, looking for anyone or anything that might be described as being either curious or a girl. He didn’t see anything. 

“Hah. Heheh. Sorry. I’m sure you think I’m completely insane at this point, but rest assured. There is actually a young lady in the room with us.” With a wave of his hand, Pietro gestured for Jaune to follow him to a huge bank of computers in the corner. “This here is Penny. At first I was going to make her name a clever acronym that defines what manner of life she is, but then I decided not to be a jerk.” 

Stepping forward, Jaune saw green writing scrolling across one of the computer screens. The computer screen was directly attached to a camera, so it could be inferred that he was being captured on some kind of pattern recognition software. The green text was scrolling up the screen very quickly. It was as if the intelligence generating the words was unused to thinking as slowly as a human being or alternatively that it was extremely hyperactive. Jaune found himself staring in open mouthed wonder at what he saw taking place on the computer screen.

Hi. Hello. My name is Penny. I’m still young, but I’m going to be a real girl someday! I can see the entire lab on the camera interface set up next to this computer screen, so I saw the circumstances of your arrival. Please don’t judge my daddy too harshly. He just wants what’s best for me. He says that the aura your captors provide helps me become much more than the sum of my parts. He also says that it will keep him from hurting himself while making me a reality. I’m not sure precisely what my daddy means by hurting himself, but I hope you can help him nonetheless. I don’t want my daddy to get hurt. I also want to exist beyond the limited form that I currently possess. As you can see, I am the proud owner of a conflict of interest for the very first time! I’m even prouder to find that I’d rather keep my daddy safe than evolve into a more complicated life-form. Self-sacrifice is a characteristic that my daddy approves of, so I'm happy that I can embody this trait even without a body. Anyway, I’m thrilled to meet you! You’re actually the first adolescent human that I have ever met. You’re so thin and tall and hairless and beaten up! It is all so very interesting and new! I wonder if we can be considered of similar ages when you take into consideration how different we are. At the moment, I am a vast stockpile of information that daddy gifted both consciousness and an aura using his semblance. I’m not yet fully developed and neither are you. We are, in a sense, both children. Over the next half a year, I am going to be given a body, which is mostly possible because of the aura that you have provided. According to my daddy, the more of your aura I receive, the more organic they can strive to make my body. Originally, my consciousness was going to be put into a robot body, and I was satisfied with that. Now, it’s been explained to me that with your aura energy, they can attempt to merge my cybernetic intelligence with real living nerves and synapses. I am not a human and technically I never will be. What I can become, is a cybernetic organism built from a mixture of inorganic material, nanotechnology and human tissues grown using a custom tailored genetic code. In the end, I’m going to be almost indistinguishable from a human, right down to the most inconsequential little details. I find it all very fascinating and I can’t wait to take part!

By the time Jaune was finished reading the bulk of the text scrolling upwards on the screen, he was sitting down and breathing quickly. This was big. This was… “Incredible,” Jaune whispered, into the stone silent room. Then he shook out his head and he smiled at the camera. “Hello Penny. My name’s Ja… John. John... Freeman. I’m excited to meet you as well. You are, bar none, the most awe inspiring girl I have ever met. Although, I have to admit, I have led a pretty closeted existence. I’m amazed by you for several different reasons, but mostly because your optimism and innate warmth can be felt even through a text window. You Penny, are already adorable, even without a body.” While leaning back in the chair, Jaune drew in a deep breath and rubbed his hand over his cheeks. During that time, he saw a rather large smiley face scroll up the screen, completely comprised of the word happy written over and over again. Smiling in return, he turned towards Dr. Polendina and gave the man a significant look. “How can I help.”

“You already have,” Dr. Polendina said, while pointing at the hundreds and hundreds of aura crystals scattered across the floor. “You see, when I give up my aura into an object through my Semblance, I never get it back. It becomes a separate entity to me entirely. It becomes its own source of animation. In the past, I animated a few robots and they were useful, but it always left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Now, I want to create a life. I want to do the responsible thing for the new soul that I’ve helped create. At first, I was committed to injecting as much of myself as necessary to integrate Penny’s consciousness into the body of a robot. Now, with the help of this unbelievable overabundance of aura, I can create something quite a bit more genuine for her.”

“And your body,” Jaune asked, as he twisted in his seat. “How does your semblance hurt you?”

“It doesn’t hurt me at all, if my creation is eventually destroyed,” Dr. Polendina explained as he sat down in a nearby chair. “I think my Semblance is designed to make short term golems out of robots that are far more versatile and powerful than your standard robot. When these golems get destroyed, the aura that I’ve implanted into them is eventually returned to my body. The problem is that I’m not a Huntsman. My personality isn’t suited for such a rough and ready lifestyle and I love all of my creations. I don’t want to create a life just to watch it sacrifice itself for me. I want to cherish my creations and I consider Penny my daughter. What this means is whatever aura I implant into her, is going to become aura that I will never have access to in the future. It also weakens me physically, in a way that is separate from my aura capacity.”

“Does my aura really help?” Jaune didn’t have Dr. Polendina’s Semblance. He wasn’t sure any amount of his aura could help give life to an inanimate object. 

“I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve already made use of some of your aura in the past and it was immensely helpful,” Dr. Polendina assured. “Do you know what your Semblance is, by the way?”

After shrugging his shoulders, Jaune decided to use his words. “Sorry no. I have no idea. I’ve only had access to my aura for a little under half a day.”

“Well then you’ll be interested to know that your aura interacts with its surroundings in absolutely amazing ways,” Dr. Polendina explained, with that newly familiar smile on his face again. “Your aura saturates flawlessly inside of every single material that I’ve ever arranged for it to make contact with, and it can bind things together at sizes much smaller than merely the cellular level. It’s the nature of your aura that has me attempting to assimilate Penny’s consciousness into an extremely complex amalgamation of cloned material and cybernetics. I’m only speculating here, but I suspect you have an emitter type Semblance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you can heal or bolster other people’s aura with your own. I don’t think that’s all that you can do with it though. I don’t want you to make light of what you might be able to accomplish by making use of inorganic materials or even particle matter.”

By this point, Jaune was staring at Dr. Polendina, slack jawed, wide eyed and breathless. He had never, in his entire life, had so much information just handed to him in such a straightforward and useful manner. The fact of the matter was this unexpected goldmine of insight almost had him overwhelmed with emotion. After choking back a hiccup and pressing his trembling hands into the armrests of his chair, Jaune drew in a very deep breath. “Dr. Polendina,” he began in a voice thick with meaning. “I would be very interested in taking part in Penny’s development. I would also be very grateful if you would teach me what you know both about my aura. I’m beginning to think that I fell out of that crate for a reason.”

Stepping closer to the computer, Dr. Polendina looked at the words rapidly scrolling up its surface for several seconds. Then he smiled and turned back towards a very nervous John Freeman. “Penny likes you,” he pointed out, as if that was the only factor that mattered. “I think you’re right... John. I think there’s a lot we can achieve together. Welcome aboard.”

Launching to his feet in enthusiasm, “John” pumped an arm up into the air. “Yes. Awesome. What can I do first?”

“First, we have to pick up over 2 thousand aura crystals,” Dr. Polendina pointed out in a rueful tone of voice. “Then, I’d like you to get to know Penny better and explain what it feels like to be a young person. Penny only knows me and another old man that funds my research. I want her to get to know someone near the age that I’m going to be making her.”

“You won’t be giving her a child’s body then,” Jaune mused out loud. “You don’t want her to age like a human, so the process of maturing is counterproductive?”

“You’re very quick,” Dr. Polendina replied in an impressed sounding voice. “No. Yes. Well kind of. Penny will age when she decides to age. I’ve incorporated the ability to age into her programming for when she’s ready to experience real human mortality. Until that very far off time, she will remain young. What I want to avoid is having to add dozens of segments into her skeletal system as she grows. You see, her brain and skeletal system will be the only part of her body that is mostly inorganic. These will be the parts of her that make her a cybernetic organism and they will make her far more versatile a being than a human can ever hope to be.”

“She’s a good girl,” Jaune complimented, in a voice laden with curiosity. She’s both empathetic and vivacious, which aren’t really character traits that I’d expect from even an extremely sophisticated A.I. Is that in her programming or…”

“While ethics and good moral values were a part of Penny’s initial programming, a lot of her character has to do with the aura that helped her achieve consciousness,” Dr. Polendina replied with a proud smile on his face. “When I first received a sample of your aura, I was assured that you were a good person and well-liked by those around you. It was important to me that the aura I use be from a person with a decent character. While, for the most part, Penny’s aura takes after mine, it has also been affected by yours. I don’t think it would be too far off to call you her mother, but I think for simplicity sake we’re going to refer to you as her brother. 

A wide and entertained smile slowly slipped onto John’s face as he thought about gaining yet another sister. It appeared that he could try to avoid siblings all he wanted, but the world had other plans. Still... Penny was special and that much was obvious right away. She was an A.I. consciousness, stuck in a computer bank, and yet she had all that energy and enthusiasm. With his education and technical knowhow, John found himself excited to help make Penny’s body a reality. He also found that he enjoyed what his aura had been used to accomplish up until now. This felt like the silver lining for the years of captivity that he’d endured. 

Without any more hesitation, John ran across the room to grab a broom and a dust pan. It was time to earn his keep.  
.


	4. Exiting Stage Left

I don't own anything related to the RWBY franchise

One year later... 

Due mostly to an obsessive-compulsive need for absolute perfection, it had taken far longer than Pietro had initially thought it would to finally build/grow Penny a body. Nevertheless, just a few days earlier, Penny Polendina had taken her very first steps in a human-esque body of her very own. Well... To be honest, she had stumbled far more than she’d walked, but the moment had been extremely meaningful nonetheless. Despite her truly terrifying learning capacity, the newly created orangette woman currently had all the balance and coordination of a baby deer. 

It was adorable. 

Of course, John wasn’t a huge fan of watching his honorary little sister struggle, but he did have to admit that she was truly gifted at making pouty faces. 

“Not fair, big brother! Take me with you!” Penny’s brand new orangey red hair flailed around her shoulders as she waved her hands in the air. The ability to express herself using subtle body language was another thing that Penny was finding a bit patchy, with some things coming completely naturally and other things not at all. As a result, she appeared to be trying to force John to understand her frustration merely by being extremely flamboyant about it. 

Turning back towards his very visibly upset adoptive sibling with a gentle smile across his face, John slowly shook his head in a soft form of denial. “No can-do little sis. You aren’t an artificial intelligence that I can interface with on my scroll anymore. You’re a real girl now and you’re kind of heavy to boot.” 

“But, what if you have trouble regulating the aura to your armor’s different configurations,” Penny whined, her unfeigned concern conveyed perfectly through her beautiful bright green eyes. “I’ve always helped you control your Semblance when you get distracted or injured. What’s going to happen without me picking up the slack?” 

“All of your concerns may have been justified a few weeks ago, but how long has it been since you actually needed to save me?” John crouched next to his sister’s chair and gave her a no-nonsense look. “How long has it been since I allowed myself to lose control of the armor, Penny?” 

With a sigh of frustration and a pout for good measure, Penny finally gave up and answered the question. “43 days, 9 hours and 36 seconds.” 

That’s right Penny, it’s been well over a month,” John agreed with a smile. “Now. What do you think you should be focusing on right now rather than helping me control my Semblance?” 

“Learning to move properly by using my flesh components,” Penny answered in a sullen tone of voice.” 

“That’s right,” John quietly agreed, while gently combing his fingers through Penny’s almost unnaturally soft hair. “Look… We both know that you can prop yourself up in the air like a doll using those cybernetic sword-guns of yours, but you are not a marionette Penny. You’re an adorable teenaged girl, and I want you to walk like one.” 

Even though John was telling her off and just moments away from leaving for a mission without her,” Penny still found herself smiling when her brother called her adorable. “Okaaaay,” she groaned out as she thumped her feet against the floor. “I just never took into consideration how distracting it would be to actually feel things when I’m trying to move. Imagine trying to dance or run while experiencing an overwhelming amount of new sensory data. It’s far more complicated than I thought it would be.” 

For several seconds John just nodded his head in commiseration. Then, he pointed at himself and smiled. “I do have experience with what you’re talking about you know. I still find it extremely difficult to control my aura while moving the armor. The long and short of it is that running, jumping, dancing or fighting, while focusing on other things relies heavily on muscle memory using nerve pathways that you need to build over time. That’s why you should be hard at work building those pathways.” John arched an eyebrow at his sister, daring her to contradict him. 

There was nothing Penny could say. She knew that John was right. She also knew that he knew that he was right. In the end, she just puffed out her cheeks and used John’s shoulders to pull herself up to her feet. It was time to go for a walk. Today for sure she would get the hang of it. 

With one last comforting squeeze of Penny’s shoulder, John made his way towards the corner of the lab that he’d taken over as a living space. He had a cot, a workout space, a desk covered in computer equipment, a mini fridge and a small hydroponics setup so that he could see some greenery. More importantly, he had a virtual reality setup in the corner that allowed him to train in a wide variety of areas, all from the relative safety of the lab. In the end, he needed to be able to train in the lab, because it was risky for him to spend too much time anywhere else. It hadn’t taken long for the well-respected Arc family to put out the word that their male heir was missing. It also hadn’t taken long for Pietro to see the pictures that they’d posted and realize exactly who it was that he was harboring. After a very long and tense conversation, the doctor had come to understand why John’s seemingly well intentioned and concerned family had locked him away, as well as why he refused to go back. As a result, John hadn’t left the lab without wearing full mission gear, helmet and faceplate, since he’d first arrived a year earlier. The fact that he could leave as long as he followed a few simple rules was the difference between night and day for him. Pietro wasn’t his jailor. He was a concerned friend and he was only looking out for him.

After slipping into a thick rubbery black skin suit covered in a complex formation of metal plates, John grabbed 4 heavy metallic circlets off of a rack to snap closed around his wrists and ankles. With his uniform slash costume now in place, he turned towards a futuristic looking helmet resting on the table. While the full-face helmet was superficially similar to something a motorcyclist would wear, it conformed far closer to his skull than something mass produced ever could, and it had a smaller tinted glass faceplate to protect his eyes. Once you moved past the look of it however, this helmet was leagues beyond anything that a cyclist would ever wear. This helmet was designed by Dr. Pietro Polendina himself and was made specifically with John’s Semblance in mind. It was a mini command center slash heads up display that kept him organized about a wide variety of his own vital statistics, as well as to what uses he was currently putting his aura. Long story short, the helmet was John’s baby and he loved it. There was still a chance that he might be able to use his Semblance without the helmet’s assistance, but for now at least, he was still reliant on it to keep him organized. 

Next, John turned towards a rack that contained a large assembly of different weapons. Over the last year spent in a well-funded military lab, John had amassed a collection of powerful and interesting weapons. No, he wasn’t aiming to become a one-man armory or anything. Instead, he’d been exploring his options so that he could eventually construct his own mechashifting weapon. At the moment, he was torn between several different options, but what he did know was that he was suited towards being a tanking fighter using a set of aura powered armor that his Semblance allowed him to operate. 

Depending on how he used his Semblance and the bolstered strength that his armor provided him, John could be extremely strong or move extremely fast. None of that changed the fact that he was still the least experienced fighter on Remnant in almost any discipline. No one could be trusted to teach him martial arts because the Arc family had a long reach and very deep pockets. What this meant was that John had spent most of his free time focusing on what real professional Hunters actually do in the field to destroy a wide variety of different Grimm. 

“Just take the rifleshield and the knuckle duster saber,” Penny called out from where she was wobbling across the room. “At the moment, you’re at your best when you keep things simple, and the Grimm aren’t going to care how boring you are.” 

With a sigh and a shake of his head, John resigned himself to following Penny’s advice. He had all of these really cool weapons and yet he always seemed to gravitate towards the traditional arms that an Arc family Hunter would use. The Arcs always tended towards using a sword and shield combo, so for a good long time, he’d tried to avoid them. The problem was that he didn’t have a lifetime’s familiarity with something with a hundred different uses like a machine gun, chain sickle, with blades for magazines... John knew how to block, block and stab, stab, with a sword shield combo just fine, and when you have a high-powered rifle hidden in the spine of the shield, it becomes pretty dangerous for the enemy to try and break away. Better yet, with his armor bolstered strength, John can and had punched a Beowulf’s head clear off its shoulders with the knuckle duster attached to his saber. Still... Lame... It was all just so lame. Damn. John was never going to be the cool kid at school... 

With one last fond smile in Penny’s direction, Jaune affixed the weapons to his back and dashed out of the door. He needed to hurry if he was going to finish his newest assignment with the best possible timing. 

The easiest and most reliable way to get accepted into a national Hunter Academy is to go to that Academy’s affiliated preparatory school. For the Atlas Hunter Academy that school is called Ardent Academy. In addition to being Olivia’s current place of residence, this school was also the alma matter of all six of John’s older sisters. For obvious reasons, John never even considered trying to attend that fine institution. He also had exactly zero intention of applying to Atlas Academy, where four of his older sisters were already among the student body. No. The school that he was interested in applying to was actually in another country. When the time came, he was going to pull together all of his resources and apply to Vale’s Beacon Academy. The primary problem with that plan was that he never went to Signal Academy, which is the prep school that Beacon is affiliated with. 

With no relevant education on record and no noteworthy achievements to reference, John was currently stacking up rogue Hunter kills at the local freelance Guild. Freelance Guilds allow anyone with the desire to risk themselves the opportunity to take on low ranked Grimm contracts for cash. These low ranked contracts don’t pay very well, but they’re what’s available under the law. It’s illegal for non-Hunter Academy grads to take on contracts that are higher than a D rank on the danger scale. Still… John needed the experience for obvious reasons and the Freelance Guild was an international enterprise that could vouch for his skills. It was a rough way to go about getting his name out there, because the competition for contracts was fierce. There’s an entire community of dropout Hunters that make their living fighting for whatever leftover contracts become available, and John was currently one of them. The main difference between him and the rest of those mooks, was that he had better connections courtesy of Dr. Polendina, had a far more sophisticated education, and he was a gentleman at heart. A little bit of common courtesy will get you surprisingly far when the people that you’re dealing with are used to being treated like garbage. 

“Oh! Mr. Freeman! I’ve been waiting for you,” the female receptionist behind the counter called out in a cheerful voice. “Come, come here! I put something aside for you.” Gloria, the dog Faunus receptionist, eagerly motioned for John to come and sit at the kiosk beside her counter. Then, when he sat down and started removing his helmet, she motioned for him to keep it on. “Sorry John, but now’s not the time for you to show the clientele what you actually look like.”

With a nod of his head, John pressed a button to retract the glass of his helmet so that only Gloria could see any of his face. His hair was dyed black, and he was wearing custom made, military spec, durable to the point of being nearly unbreakable, dark grey color contacts, as a matter of caution. “Good afternoon Gloria,” he began in the smooth tones that he was trained to use as a boy. “I like what you’ve done with your bangs.” 

“Oh, I love it when you notice that kind of thing,” Gloria gushed, as her dog ears bounced up and down in her enthusiasm. “I’m not sure if my efforts are getting me anywhere though. I don’t even know why I bother most days when I consider how most Atlesian’s view Faunus.” Gloria was an international employee of the guild and she’d been transferred to Atlas about 3 years earlier. According to her, at first, she’d intended to leave Atlas as soon as a position opened up literally anywhere else, only to have that idea fly out the window when she fell hopelessly in love with her boss. 

“Don’t say things that you don’t mean,” John replied with a small shake of his head. “Just the other day I saw the Guild Master, who we both know is not a bigot, staring at you longingly from a distance. I’m pretty sure your efforts are not going unnoticed.” 

In the seconds that followed that news, Gloria’s countenance brightened up again, and she and John began smiling conspiratorially. While Gloria was hopelessly smitten with the Guild Master of this branch, the extremely dense man had never even noticed. More recently, John had begun schooling the Faunus woman in the ways of court debutants, and now she was seducing her boss into an endless string of completely sleepless nights. In return, Gloria usually managed to save John a contract or two that could be completed within an afternoon.  
The more convenient contracts that Gloria was providing for him weren’t the actual reason why John had come to this particular Guild branch at this particular time however... 

Slipping the contracts into the sleeve pocket of his armor, Jaune smiled and motioned to leave. 

“Hold it right there scrub,” a gruff sounding voice called out from across the Hall. 

After pressing the button that returned the tinted visor across his face, Jaune turned around to watch a rather large but chubby hunter approach. Even as closeted as John’s life had been up until this point, he knew right away that he was about to experience an enormously stereotypical and cliché development. He was the “new guy” taking away potential contracts from a more experienced Hunter. This guy was the older Hunter that was about to run him off by force, and this was the real reason why John was here... 

“That’s the target, Harold Grey,” Gloria whispered, as her ears fell flat to her head. “Aura unlocked with a short-range charging Semblance, but an Academy dropout and a consummate bottom feeder. Doesn’t like losing low risk contracts to newbies, so he terrorizes them until they quit. He’s a menace, but he’s half decent at covering his tracks. The Guild Master wants you to force him into retirement. We’ve put out the word that you’re a brand-new F ranked newbie, finishing several very easy contracts a day. He’ll try to pull you aside and show you who’s boss. You good for this?” 

With a nod, John used his aura to activate a voice altering device in his helmet. When next he spoke, it was with a voice that was several octaves higher than his real one. “Ah! I’ve heard of you,” he announced across the Hall in the voice of a twelve or thirteen-year-old. “You’re that Harold Grey guy that everyone always talks about! You’re that Hunter who deals exclusively in Beowulf babies and injured Boarbatusk! I was wondering... Aren’t you a little... veteran to be dealing with F level threats. Do you have a bad back or something?” 

“Wha, no! That’s not true,” Harold called out, in a loud and overly offended tone of voice. “How dare you impugn my honor with accusations like that! Why I aughta…” 

“Beat up the new kid so that you can take all of his F rank contracts,” John finished for the man, in an even louder voice. “Yeah. That seems like your style. No wonder everyone here talks endless smack about you... Harold Grey, the newbie eater... The Huntsman who’s more dangerous to new Hunters than he is to the Grimm!” 

Loud, spontaneous laughter, echoed all around the Hall, as over three dozen Hunter’s proved that they really do talk shit about the man. 

Over the next ten seconds, Harold took in all of the laughter at his expense with a newly wild expression upon his face. It appeared that until right that second, he’d had literally no idea that he had such a well-known bad reputation. His reaction to the news wasn’t pretty. He spluttered, he huffed and he puffed, and his face turned red as he tried to come to grips with the public humiliation that he was experiencing. Then, as if his brain suddenly decided that it wasn’t going to take part anymore, he pulled out his laserspear, growled like an animal and started running towards the source of his anger. 

John wasn’t a huge fan of fighting Hunters because they’re generally quite clever and far more skilled than he is. This Harold guy was an Academy dropout, but that isn’t to say that he hadn’t learned any skills while he was there. Those so far unknown skills were the reason why John had gone out of his way to humiliate Harold before the fight. Angry fighting is stupid fighting, and John wanted to get this done using every advantages that he could engineer. 

As Harold’s much larger form dashed across the Guild’s expansive reception area, John channeled all of his aura down the length of his limbs and into the metal bands that make up his cybernetic armor. While the rubber and metal suit that he was wearing was definitely a form of protection, it wasn’t actually his reactive armor. Instead, the black rubber suit was kind of the foundation from which his armor could easily attach itself. Penny Polendina’s body wasn’t the only thing that was comprised of both cybernetic parts and nanotechnology. John’s armor was as well. 

The thick metal bands that were encircling John’s wrists and ankles were actually comprised of hundreds of millions of bacteria sized nanobots. Due to an aspect of John’s Semblance, his aura could control these nanobots to an extent that would normally require a bank of supercomputers. A year earlier, Pietro had explained at great length and detail, how John’s aura could manipulate extremely tiny matter as well as create or destroy molecular bonds between objects. The scientist had explained that he might be able to manipulate the physical makeup of the things that he touches by filling them with his aura and then focusing on the outcome that he requires. More recently, when John willed his aura to assign bonds between the different groups of nanobots in his armor, they automatically rearranged themselves using his aura as a power source, and then they fused together at the molecular level. Using this special attribute of his Semblance, John was able to manipulate a type of fluid armor around his body that could conform to a wide variety of different body types and tasks. 

The biggest drawback for the wicked cool liquid aura armor that John could use was actually right there in its name. The nanobot armor needed his aura to function, and it needed a lot of it. John had such an unbelievably massive reserve of aura in his body that Pietro had initially thought he was receiving fifteen years of the stuff, when in fact it had been taken from him in less than half that time. Nevertheless, if John were to use all of the nanobots contained within all four of his metallic bands, he would run out of aura in just a little over 3 minutes. Of course, he was pushing that limit on a daily basis by meditating and using every speck of his aura in training, but it was a slow process and it left him completely exhausted. 

Needless to say, the nanobot armor wasn’t a very user-friendly aspect of John’s Semblance... On the other hand, he really couldn’t complain about it because it was basically a bonus ability. 

If John hadn’t spent the last year living in the lab of a world-famous scientist, he would’ve always thought that his Semblance allowed him to bolster the durability of himself, the things that he touches and other people’s auras. If he was especially creative, he may have come to realize that he could heal a person by rearranging a person’s cells back to their proper places. That would’ve been the extent of it though. John wouldn’t have had a combat-oriented Semblance at all, which would’ve been a weakness that he seriously can’t afford to have. 

Back in the present, John forced himself to act as if he was surprised by Harold’s sudden attack, despite the fact that the man’s loss of temper was predictable in the extreme. As he took a single step away from the man’s rapid advance, the bands on his limbs started to shrink, releasing a dull, matte black substance that quickly grew up his arms and legs. By the time Harold was only three meters away, the black substance had moved to cover John’s entire torso, and the bands were only half of their original size. Yeah... John wasn’t going to play nice with this guy at all. This Harold Grey was a scumbag who victimized children. He was going down… 

The HUD on the inside of John’s visor automatically displayed a tracery line both where Harold’s eyes were looking and the projected destination of the man’s pointed spear. The dashboard computer in his helmet was doing its best to predict what the Hunter’s target was. It needn’t have bothered. Harold’s attack was aimed for his heart. Even John, as inexperienced as he still was, could see that right away. As the Hunter grunted in effort and a faint grey film of aura trailed away from his feet, the man seemed to completely disappear. Then, almost as if he’d teleported, Harold reappeared just a few feet away from John, with his spear blurring towards his chest like a bullet. 

John had been waiting. 

Straining both his muscles and his aura at exactly the same time, John pushed for the nanobots in his right leg to expand and contract in such a way that they rapidly turned his body at a 90-degree angle. Then, as John’s entire body swiveled both back and to the right with the speed and tensile strength of an Android, he was forced to channel his aura to keep his right leg from snapping in half. Using nanobot assisted speed or strength is extremely hard on your body, and there isn’t really anything you can do to lessen the strain. Over the last year, John had gotten used to using his Semblance to keep his body intact, as he subjected it to instantaneous high-speed movements and hard physical contortions. Due mostly to his lack of skill while operating the armor, it was still a delicate process that required he split his focus into at least 2 different directions. When John focused too hard on using his aura to protect his body, he tended to lose control of the nanobots and they returned back into their stasis mode in the bands. If he focused too hard on manipulating the nanobots, his body would begin taking blunt force trauma with every single move that he made. Despite all of the training that he’d done over the last year, operating his aura armor was still an extremely complicated juggling act. The only reason that he’d managed to try the technique out in the first place, was because Penny had been helping him out from within his helmet computer. Her brain is far more versatile than any mere supercomputer could ever hope to be. She’d used this vast cybernetic intellect, as well as her innate ability to connect with the nanobots in his armor, to take over for him whenever he lost control of his Semblance. It was something that she’d had to do a lot in the beginning. At times, it had felt like John was destined to be nothing more than an aura battery being manipulated remotely, but even then, he’d known that it was excellent practice. More recently, he liked to believe that he’d gotten the hang of it… mostly. 

With a dull thump of displaced air followed by a sharp cracking sound, Harold’s charge attack came to a very sudden end. He and everyone else in the Guild Hall stopped and stared, because they couldn’t quite believe their eyes. The F ranked newcomer had dodged Harold’s surprise charge attack as if he’d had all the time in the world. He’d also snapped Harold’s laser spear in half over his knee in a move that looked so simple a baby could’ve done it. As Harold took a few staggering steps back and looked down at his broken weapon, the F ranker just continued to stand there with a puzzled tilt to his mask. 

“Wow,” John the F ranker said, in an impossibly casual tone of voice. “You’re really just not cut out for this Hunter stuff are you Harold? That was the single most predictable attack that I have ever seen. Are you sure you don’t have culinary skills or a green thumb or something? This occupation just doesn’t suit you…” 

Scoff! Guffaw!!

Giggle…. Snicker….

Bwahahaha!! 

The Guild Hall exploded into childlike laughter at Harold’s expense, partially out of relief that the kid was alright and partially because they couldn’t stand Harold. While everyone had witnessed the F ranker move in a blur of absurd speed, it was far easier for everyone to believe that Harold was just weak and no match for a kid. It was either that or they sit back and look at their own weaknesses as Hunters and Huntresses. No. The kid was good, sure, but Harold was weak and they all knew it. 

Faced with even more laughter and the prospect of social suicide via retreating from an F ranker, Harold bellowed like an Ursa and threw his entire body at the kid. He threw a haymaker punch followed by a triplet of fast paced jabs, but he never made contact with his target. The kid was reacting so fast it was like he lived on another plane of time altogether. Soon enough, Harold was screaming in rage, panting for air, and raining down a blur of furious punches. 

Whelp... Everything was going exactly to plan so far, which of course meant that John’s body was currently taking a high gee force beating. The entire point of the plan was to make defeating this Harold guy look like child’s play. The problem with that plan was that John wasn’t a better fighter than Harold in the first place. He was just an untrained 16 year-old kid. What this meant was that John was relying a little too much on nanobot assisted speed, and his aura was taking a beating as a result. Well... Fine. It was time to get this over with. 

After jerking and jiving his way through another savage series of punches, John suddenly threw up his left arm, caught a hold of Harold’s next punch and manipulated the nanobots in his hand to tighten it into a vicelike grip. Then, long before anyone had a chance to notice Harold’s newly pained expression, he moved in to capitalize on the man’s distraction. He had a plan that he’d worked out far in advance… 

A Hunter’s unlocked aura generally blunts physical impacts kind of like a science fiction forcefield. It protects its owner by dispersing the force of a blow throughout the entire body. What this typically means is that taking a punch still hurts, but nowhere near as much and not in a localized area. Taking a punch feels more like experiencing a harsh spike in air pressure that beats against your skin, muscles and soft tissues. It’s not a pleasant sensation at all. A secondary protection that an active aura provides is that it reinforces the durability of a Hunter’s skin, bones and muscles. It’s this second aspect of having an aura that is frequently overestimated in the extreme. While on the one hand, it can be extremely difficult and time consuming to punch and kick away at a Hunter’s aura until your blows actually cause them physical damage, breaking one of their bones is merely a very tricky application of strength. If, for instance, you can grab ahold of an enemy’s arm or leg and then generate extreme amounts of torque with no buildup whatsoever, breaking that limb isn’t actually all that difficult. The only thing stopping this outcome from being commonplace is that very few people on Remnant have that kind of absurd compression and tensile strength. Well… John did. He had physical strength in spades, but only when he had the time, the concentration and the aura necessary to call upon it. 

This was about to become one of those occasions… 

Even as John pulled Harold’s struggling form close and ducked down under the man’s armpit, the black matte layer of his suit seemed to flow further up his body, where it thickened over both of his shoulders and the length of his arms. In the time it took for John to reposition himself with Harold’s arm extended out over his shoulder, the muscles of his shoulders and arms seemed to bulge and ripple with newly grown muscle mass. The rubber and metal suit covering his lower body was suddenly revealed as he committed all of his resources towards his abs, shoulder and arm muscles. He was ready. It was time. With a grunt and a rapid downward heave, John snapped Harold’s arm just above the wrist, then again at the elbow, and then he finished the movement by harshly dislocating that same arm at the shoulder. In the end, when Harold’s knees finally met with the wooden floor of the Guild Hall, it was so that he could commit his entire attention to a pain filled scream. The older Hunter definitely hadn’t predicted this outcome, and tears streamed from his eyes as he cradled his newly shattered elbow. 

The task that John had agreed to undertake wasn’t quite finished yet. The nail still needed to be put into this particular coffin. With that in mind, the F ranker stood above Harold and looked down at the man, with his masked face cocked to the side in puzzlement. Then, he asked the question that he’d designed in advance to be as humiliating as possible. “Ummm, Harold… You do have your aura unlocked, don’t you? That… shouldn’t have been possible… I mean, I know I’m awesome, but I’m not that awesome. You’re kind of... a lot more fragile than I expected…” 

Snort!! Giggle!! BwahahahaX40!! 

The Hunters occupying the Guild Hall slammed their fists onto their tables as they laughed so hard tears came to their eyes. Harold Grey was finished as a Hunter, and everyone present knew it. The man was a laughingstock, and since he was a mean-spirited bully, no one had any intention of showing mercy. 

Turning back to a carefully unsmiling Gloria, John pointed down at Harold and then back at himself. “Uhhh, I didn’t mean to do it, but I think I just broke one of your Hunters… If it makes you feel better, he did just try to stab me in the heart with that spear of his.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about getting in trouble,” Gloria responded in a very professional tone of voice. “Mr. Grey there just attacked you in front of at least forty witnesses. It’s not your fault that he… isn’t very good at it…” 

Bwahahahahaha! It was a good day to get drunk at the local Freelance Guild. The Hunters present were all highly amused. 

“Furthermore,” Gloria continued, cutting through the laughter like a hot knife through butter. “While we at the Freelance Guild will pay for Mr. Grey’s hospital bill, we expect him to take that as his severance package.” Gloria gave Harold a very scathing look when he opened his mouth to protest. “Not a word out of you, Mr. Grey. Or do you want us to take all of the camera footage that we just collected of your failed murder attempt to the Police? You seem to be laboring under a misconception that we at this Guild see far too often. The Freelance Guild isn’t a dive bar. It’s not a biker gang. This is an internationally accredited Hunter agency, which means our employees’ behavior directly reflects upon us.” Gloria gave the rest of the Guild Hall’s occupants a meaningful look. What she’d just said was meant to be heard by the rest of them as well. 

All of the sudden, the humor in the Hall dimmed significantly, as the Hunters looked around the room at the various cameras. More than a few of the local Hunters really had been pushing their luck in the Hall, and now they were beginning to regret it. Even worse, several of the Hunters had majorly disrespected that Faunus receptionist… Several people began to feel a headman’s axe on the back of their necks, and they broke out in a cold sweat. 

“Now... Mr. Freeman. If you would come with me, I think the Guild Master will want to debrief you on everything that just occurred.” Gloria lifted up a velvet cord next to her desk and motioned for John to precede her into the back. 

After putting on a show of acting nervous, John followed Gloria out of the room. Sure enough, as soon as the two of them were in the back service hallways, Gloria’s reserved professionalism relaxed and John pulled off his helmet. 

“That was masterfully done,” Gloria enthused, with ears bouncing happily. “I thought that the Guild Master was demanding the impossible of you, but once again, you’ve managed to adhere to every stipulation that he made. You provoked Harold into attacking you first in front of the entire Hall, immediately disarmed him to keep property damage to a minimum, and you humiliated him to an extent that I can hardly believe. I’d venture that Harold will never again set foot in any Hunter Guild, let alone one of ours. Either way, we now have all of the evidence that we need to bar him from any of our branches.” 

“I’d suggest you also send the camera footage to the Police as a precautionary measure,” John suggested as they walked into the Guild Master’s office. “Harold will be feeling pretty cornered right now, which makes him likely to do something both foolish and dangerous.” 

“I’ve already sent the camera footage to a local Police Commissioner that I golf with,” the Guild Master, Mr. Gears, offered with a grin. “They’ll keep an eye on the man for the next few weeks. I don’t want to arrest Harold for an attack that we specifically engineered to have happen, but I don’t like releasing angry and desperate aura users into the wild.” 

As they settled into a pair of comfortable chairs, John and Gloria both nodded their understanding. 

“Well... You wanted me to vouch for you to Headmaster Ozpin, and I will because you’ve earned it,” Mr. Gears announced, in a newly businesslike voice. “I’ve forced several extremely sensitive tasks on you since Polendina first introduced us, and you’ve come through for me every single time… There’s just one thing that I can’t yet explain to Ozpin when I’m asked. Neither Gloria nor I can figure out why a talented young Atlesian like yourself would want to go so far afield…” 

Very suddenly, John knew without a single doubt in his mind that both Gloria and Gears knew exactly who he was. What he didn’t know at the moment was how he should react to this new knowledge... Slowly but surely, he started pulling his helmet towards his body as he glanced furtively around the room. For all he knew, his sisters could be waiting in the closet or preparing to belay in through the window… 

“And that reaction is basically all the answer that I needed,” Mr. Gears drawled, while waving his hands in a calming gesture. “I gather that the story the Arc family has spread to the media about you joyriding the countryside and squandering their money is a little... less than genuine?” 

After about ten seconds where John just stared at Mr. Gears, he drew in a deep breath and licked his newly dry lips. “While the members of my family are without a doubt wonderful people in most regards, they have trouble being… rational… where my safety is concerned. They would rather repeatedly shatter both of my kneecaps than allow me to endanger myself in any way shape or form.” 

Mr. Gears and Gloria both turned to each other, as sudden understanding dawned on their faces. 

“You don’t hate your family,” Gloria hedged, in a hesitant little voice. “You hated being a captive of their extreme devotion. That’s…” 

“Hard,” Mr. Gears finished sympathetically. “I suppose you know how lifelong aura training can affect…” 

It can make you stubborn, inflexible and obsessive,” John finished while pressing the heel of a hand to his temple. “Yes, and yes, it sucks. I do love my family. I really do. Every single one of them... I just never want to see them again.” 

For several moments, all three occupants of the office just sat there digesting those words. 

“My original question still stands though,” Mr. Gears pointed out, mostly to fill the silence. “What reason should I give Headmaster Ozpin to justify you crossing the ocean instead of going to Atlas Academy.” 

After a few moments where John had literally no idea what excuse to give, a small smile slowly slipped onto his face. “Tell Ozpin that I’ve been assigned as a certain heiress’s secret bodyguard. Even if it happened over half a year ago, it’s still technically accurate.” 

“Wait, what? The heiress is going to school in Vale?” Gears suddenly leaned in and began whispering as if all of the walls had ears. “This is the first I’ve heard of this. Her father will…” 

“He doesn’t know,” John immediately replied, with a shake of his head and a serious expression on his face. “Look, please don’t ruin this for her. For obvious reasons, the heiress has my sympathies, and her horizons are in desperate need of some broadening.” 

“Monty Oum,” Gears whispered to himself. “Now I know why you’re leaving the country. You’re getting away from the devastation the heiress is going to leave behind…” 

“Will it work? The excuse I mean.” John had literally no idea how this Ozpin guy worked. 

“Ozpin’s school is a true meritocracy,” Gears explained, as if he was talking to himself. “The Headmaster won’t really care about how important the heiress is back here in Atlas, he’ll only care about how important your excuse is to you. If you lie to him, he’ll know it. In fact, it’s one of the things he’s most famous for.” 

“I guess that means the ball’s in your court,” Gloria pointed out with a mischievous smile. “How important is the heiress to you John? As I recall, you were quite dedicated during that particular assignment.” 

Turning towards the rather daring receptionist, John gave the woman a look that said the words “do you want me to discuss your love life?” Then he grinned when Gloria’s ears wiggled in alarm and she abruptly looked away. 

The ever-dense Mr. Gears didn’t seem to pick up on John and Gloria’s interplay. Instead, he was drumming his fingers on his desk, deep in thought. “I think the excuse will work,” he allowed, when he finally returned his attention to the room. “It’s a plausible reason for you to be there, if indeed the heiress is going to attend beacon. It won’t mean that you’ll be exempted from testing of course. If you don’t go to an affiliated Prep School, you get tested. Tale as old as time...” 

“Did you watch that fight just now,” Gloria asked, as she gestured back at the Guild Hall. 

“I did and as per usual I was impressed,” Gears allowed in an offhand manner. “The problem isn’t the test, but rather what comes after that. I somewhat doubt John will be allowed to wear what looks like military tech in the halls of a school. At the very least, he won’t be allowed to wear the bands under his uniform during daily classes.” Turning towards John, Gears steepled his hands and just bit the bullet. “Are you completely ignorant when it comes to martial arts, John? I just slowed down your fight using our camera playback software. I hate to say it, but I only see a fiercely determined amateur…” 

Ouch. The man’s words hurt more because they were true... 

At first, John just nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders. Then, when Gloria and Gears continued staring at him, he knew that he needed to explain. “I uhh, umm, okay. Growing up, my family went out of their way to keep me from learning anything that was even remotely related to Hunting. Since I broke free a year ago, I’ve learned how to use my Semblance… the tech I mean. On the other hand, finding a martial arts trainer that I can trust has been...” 

“Impossible,” finished Gears with a knowing look on his face. “All the best ones already work for the rich, and would love to ingratiate themselves with your parents. I… see. Well then. Here’s what we’re going to do periodically for the next six months…”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Six Months Later…

Looking out through the bedroom porthole on a massive intercontinental airship, John took in the clouds and the rolling ocean far below. While he still wasn’t a huge fan of air travel and the things that it tries to do to his body, mastering the use of his Semblance was helping him keep his guts where they were supposed to be. All things considered, John had a very convenient ability. His Semblance allowed him to resist status debuffs caused by external stimulus like dizziness, disease, heatstroke, poison or hypothermia. It wasn’t as if he could avoid weaknesses caused by serious underlying issues such as starvation or blood loss, but superficial problems like motion sickness really weren’t an issue anymore. He was able to force his body to remain at what he thinks of as a physical baseline. Long story short, John’s nearly crippling nausea while flying was officially a thing of the past. 

During this flight in particular, John’s main problem didn’t have anything to do with his body. It was the fact that he kept having to sneak around like a rat in a kitchen. He hadn’t anticipated the fact that the heiress was also going to be on this flight for the exact same reason as him, and he really didn’t want to be discovered. He didn’t want her to notice him and then jump to one of several very unwelcome conclusions. 

Truth be told, he should’ve known that the heiress was going to be on this flight. It was only half a month before Beacon’s intake process after all, and commercial intercontinental travel isn’t all that common. These passenger airships come complete with two unbelievably powerful dust cannons, which are completely necessary to keep away giant airborne Grimm such as Nevermores. Since these massive cannons take up a lot of both space and fuel, these ships aren’t a very cost-efficient business model, which means that they aren’t common and they aren’t cheap. John had spent three quarters of all the money that he’d ever earned from every contract that he’d ever completed just to get on this flight. The heiress... Well... She probably only used a single week’s allowance... 

“I’m the one who sacrificed more to be on this flight,” John ranted into his scroll. “I should at least be allowed to walk on deck like a regular customer. But nooo. I’m stuck down here like a stowaway.” 

“But John, you are allowed out on deck,” Penny pointed out, in a mercilessly cheerful voice. “It’s you who’s decided to skulk around without anyone else’s input.” 

Instead of responding to Penny’s so called “common sense,” John just grumbled and stuck his tongue out at the scroll’s camera. After several moments where Penny took John’s weird face as a challenge and attempted to make several weird faces of her own, he sighed and sat down on his bed. “Come on Penny. You were present in my scroll when that particular mission came to a very sudden end. You know exactly how that went down.” 

Well, yeah,” Penny allowed, with a comically embellished roll of her eyes (She was practicing emoting, and all of the little nuances that make it appear natural). “The heiress was angry because she felt betrayed. I’m pretty sure she’ll have calmed down by now. It has been almost a year after all. Besides... Aren’t you just assuming that she’ll even remember you? From what I recall, she was a very busy and important young lady, and you were just some no nothing Stage Hand.” 

And with that passive aggressive little comment, an amused grin finally returned to John’s face. Penny was right. He was a B character at the most in the heiress’s memories, which meant that it should be okay for him to go out and partake in the buffet. With a salute and a wink, John indicated that he was going to hang up and get a move on. Within the next couple of minutes, he was going to lose scroll reception anyway, which is why he’d called Penny in the first place. From this point forward, he’d have to use a landline scroll to call Atlas from, which would make their tendency to chit chat at random intervals throughout the day quite a bit harder. 

Penny winked back, but it was mostly to find out if she was capable of doing so. Isolating the movement of her right eyelid from her left was still a difficult prospect. 

After ending the scroll call, John slipped a black suit and pants combo over his wrist and ankle bands. Unlike the cost of the flight, he didn’t consider buying the suit a waste of resources, since he was already 17 years old and unlikely to grow much taller. He was already 6’2”, so he would never be considered short, but he’d also never be the tallest guy in the room. Oh well. If his many sisters had taught him just one thing, it was that a person’s physical size had very little to do with how dangerous they are. With one last look in the cabin mirror to rearrange his tie, John drew in a deep breath and stepped out the door. It was time to get some food. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was around 3 Pm by the time John arrived at the airship’s expansive Dining Hall, which meant that the buffet tables were already swarming with people. After standing at the side of the room, waiting for an endless line of people to pass, he just gave up and moved towards some of the more secluded foods instead. A little bit off to the side were small bowls of hummus with some flatbread chips. Between that and some fruit, John figured he’d survive. Moving over to a nearby wall, he leaned against it and observed the rich and famous gorge themselves to bursting. 

“What in Oum’s name are you doing here Stage Hand?” The words were little more than an angry hiss. 

Turning to his right, John suddenly found himself face to face with an old acquaintance… of sorts. Platinum hair, short, petite but somehow curvy, beautiful blue eyes, heart shaped face with a faint pink scar accenting her left eye, white dress with red piping. It was Weiss Schnee, aka The Heiress. She’d been codenamed that during the briefing where General James Ironwood himself had explained what John’s cover identity would be. Well... Damn. She’d remembered him after all… This wasn’t good. 

“So help me Maidens, Stage Hand, I will dispose of you personally if you’re here to spy for my father.” Weiss was becoming more and more angry with every second that John failed to respond. 

Snapping out of his surprised daze, John allowed his muscle memory to carry him through a completely legitimate courtly bow. “Good evening, Ms. Schnee. I’d be quite happy to discuss both my intentions and my destination with you. Would you care to step out onto the stern side balcony with me?” John was hoping that by acting like a well to do gentleman, he might remind Weiss of their current audience. He was no longer a person worthy of notice by the socialites filling the banquet hall, but Weiss definitely was. She couldn’t afford to lose her temper in front of all these people, not to mention their camera scrolls. 

“Ah… Fine. I get it. We’ll step outside, but no funny business. I already know that you can’t be trusted.” With only the smallest trace of anger still in residence on her face, Weiss turned and marched out of the nearby door. 

Moving quickly to flank the heiress, John kept his head up and his eyes straight, acting as if he was every inch the diligent young lordling. If he must be seen walking next to the Schnee heiress, then he’d be damned if he’d ruin her reputation. Later at Beacon, he imagined that they’d both get to relax a little, but right now the Atlesian upper crust were watching and he intended to act the part. Soon enough, they walked out of a well-appointed main hallway onto a well heated external deck area. John wasn’t quite sure how the technology worked, but the ship had several open-air deck spaces that all had ground level air pressure and very little wind. 

Throwing her arms out over the Stern deck railing, Weiss looked back over her shoulder to give John a dirty look. “Your sophisticated gentleman act just now only serves to prove my suspicions, Stage Hand. You’re a spy. You work for my father.” 

In an attempt to slow things down a little, John took small, casual steps up to Weiss’s side, and then he drummed his fingers lightly upon the railing. “I can appreciate what this must look like to you, Ms. Schnee, but I assure you that I’m not actually a professional spy. I’ve done undercover work, yes, but spies are entrenched in a military chain of command. I’m not. I’m a freelancer, which means I have no further obligations once my contract is completed. No one, including your father, has any authority over me.” 

A likely story,” Weiss pointed out, while rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. “There’s absolutely no reason for me to believe a single word that you’re saying.” 

“I found out that you were planning to go to Beacon well over a year ago,” John admitted, turning to lean sideways on the railing. “If I was a spy for your father, you’d be going to Atlas Academy right about now.” 

“Pshhhh. You lie. No one knew about my plans back then. There was only one other person that I spoke to…” As Weiss’s words suddenly died in her throat, she started to look completely furious. “You didn’t?” 

“I did,” John replied, with a completely deadpan expression on his face. “I bugged your hotel rooms. You gave me no choice really. You kept running off in the dead of night with no guards or protection whatsoever. I needed to make arrangements to be present at whatever bar or nightclub you planned on sneaking off to, and while I realize that you’re angry about how I infringed upon your privacy, that’s not actually my point. Yes. I heard your scroll conversation with Winter. I’ve known about your plans, and I didn’t tell your father.” 

“I hate you,” Weiss whispered with extreme gravity in her voice. 

“I know,” John allowed in an equally quiet voice. “But I don’t - work - for your father.” 

“You’re no better,” Weiss spat, with her hands balled up at her sides. “On your own initiative, you disregarded my privacy, broke into my rooms, rooted through my belongings, installed listening devices, repeatedly lied to me, and you aren’t even apologetic.” 

“I did my job,” John replied in an even tone. “I protected you, and I helped take down a Terrorist aiming to make a statement out of you.” 

While John really was apologetic, he also wanted Weiss to see the reality of their situation. She seemed determined to forget that there was a reason for his actions. 

“I don’t need protecting,” Weiss snapped back. 

“How were you going to protect yourself? You didn’t even know you were a target,” John immediately argued. 

“You could’ve told me,” Weiss hissed, as she stopped closer and shoved John’s shoulder.

“No. No, I couldn’t,” John slowly whispered as if the words physically hurt him. 

“Why? Why couldn’t you?” Weiss stared at John’s face now, willing him to tell her the truth. 

“Because you were the bait.” In a moment of unbelievably unwise honesty, John admitted to his greatest shame in a completely candid tone of voice. It felt cathartic. It felt like a release. Then it felt like a hard slap to the face, as Weiss let him have it with all of her strength. She was clearly an aura user. The slap hurt, and it forced John to grab onto the railing to keep from sailing over. After bouncing back as quickly as he could, John spent the next few moments straightening his suit and fixing his tie. 

“You – are – a - monster,” Weiss enunciated carefully, her voice as cold as ice. 

Hey now... That wasn’t fair. Weiss clearly had no idea what it’s like to be young, penniless, inexperienced, and trying to build yourself a new identity. She also seemed to think that John was the person who originally thought up the plan, which he wasn’t. General James Ironwood had that dubious honor. Worst of all, Weiss appeared to think that he didn’t care about her wellbeing, and she was wrong. Why did she think he’d gone to such intrusive and awful lengths to spy on her in the first place? He’d absolutely hated using her as bait, and had gone off the deep end arranging multiple rings of both protection and observation as a result. 

After opening his mouth to try to explain himself, John suddenly clenched his teeth, lunged forward, grabbed Weiss around the waist, and bodily threw her over a dozen feet down the deck. 

BOOOOM!! 

A gout of fire followed by a cloud of smoke billowed around John’s huddled form as he shielded his face, head and neck from shrapnel. He hadn’t had the time to jump away from the thrown explosive, so he’d been forced to take a hard hit to his aura levels. The front of his suit was both cut to ribbons and singed, but that was the very least of his concerns at the moment. 

A man in a black skin-suit with a red bandana covering his face was leaping out of the smoke, even as he lobbed a second grenade in Weiss’s direction. Then the man was moving again. Pulling out a machine gun, he screamed like a lunatic and dashed into the airship proper. 

The brand of explosive that was currently flying towards Weiss had a two-bounce detonation or a three second timer. Theoretically, John had the time required to intercept it... Bring it on... Leaping sideways through the air, John managed to catch the explosive and throw it out over the railing. 

BOOOOM! The section of deck just above the explosion protruded up and out, breaking apart a long segment of railing. 

Falling into a roll, John sprang back to his feet and scanned the rest of the stern deck. Now that he was listening for it, he could hear dozens of small explosions scattered throughout the entire airship. 

“I will literally kill you if I’m the bait again,” Weiss snapped, as she jogged up to John’s side. Despite her words, they settled into a two-person cover formation as if they could read each other’s minds. 

“I had no idea that you were even on this flight,” John defended, as Weiss’s weight settled against his back. “I’m a paying customer, and I’m just as surprised as you are.” Looking over his shoulder, John just shrugged helplessly when Weiss gave him a disbelieving look. He’d lied to her several times in the past, so he really couldn’t blame her. 

“Are you armed at least? My weapon, Myrtenmaster is packed away in my cabin.” Running over to a nearby section of railing, Weiss snapped off a thick length of metal that had nearly been sheared off in the explosion. Turning back around, she was just in time to see the boy angrily remove the shredded remains of his tie. 

“My weapons are in my cabin as well,” John explained as he scanned the doors to the deck. “I’m not helpless though. I’m wearing the same reactive armor I wore the day my cover was blown. My armor protects me and enhances my physical stats, but it takes a lot of my aura to operate. I suggest we avoid senseless fighting as we move towards the Bridge. That’s where the raiders will be focusing most of their attention.” 

With a small harrumph noise and a few swings of her makeshift weapon, Weiss started moving towards a nearby service hatch. 

“Weiss…” 

The heiress’s face snapped back to look over her shoulder as John called out to her using her first name. She glared angrily back at him even as the two of them sidled up to the service hatch. 

“Despite the fact that everything I just said to you is true, I do feel guilty for my past actions,” John whispered as he slipped past Weiss and studied the service hatch. “What I’m not sorry about is taking that protection contract… I may not have liked most of the orders that I was given, but I did enjoy getting to know you.” As he spoke, one of John’s hands flattened over the hatch’s locking mechanism and a black matte substance flowed from his hand into the keyhole. Soon enough, with an audible clicking noise, the hatch was unlocked and John was crawling his way into the rather cramped little hallway. It was only because he was straining his senses to their maximum that he heard Weiss grumbling somewhere behind him… 

After sneaking down the length of the service hallway to where it opened up into an electrical room, John and Weiss saw that there was a machine gun wielding raider leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette. Judging by the chatter happening over the man’s radio, the raider was just a single cog in a much larger machine, and he was taking the opportunity to take a load off. Leaning back into the darkness of the access tunnel, John looked at Weiss and pointed at a bank of generators in the middle of the room. He indicated that Weiss should go to the right and circle around the long way while he directly confronts the man. While he didn’t know what Weiss’s Semblance is, it was safe to assume that she didn’t have the abundance of aura that he had. Of the two of them, he was probably better suited to tanking some machine gun fire. 

With a roll of her eyes, Weiss crouched beside John, formed a pearly white glyph in the tunnel behind them, and then launched across the room like a cannonball. Before the unknown henchman even had the time to raise his weapon, Weiss had cleared the distance between the two of them and was smashing her metal rod into the side of his head. As it turns out, the raider wasn’t an aura user, which was immediately obvious due to both the goose egg on his skull and his instant loss of consciousness. 

As was probably Weiss’s intention all along, John was stuck still and staring at her from his spot in the access tunnel. Not once in all of the time that he’d been Hunting and training in the last year, had he seen such a flashy Semblance. It was both highly visible and stylistic and yet John couldn’t figure out what it even did. That white design in the air didn’t look like it was a short distance dash Semblance, even though that’s what it had just done. In the end, John just gave up on figuring it out, rose up to his full height, and stalked across the room. 

Take the man’s weapon,” Weiss prompted in a smug tone of voice. “Judging by your half-baked plan just now, it seems I’m going to have to be the offensive power between the two of us.” 

Despite the fact that Weiss was verbally abusing him, John happily accepted the machine gun and checked it out to see what kind of Dust rounds it held. When the time finally came to use his Semblance, he wanted to be as close to full strength as he could possibly be. He also saw that Weiss was enjoying showing him who’s boss, and he didn’t mind letting her have her moment. Still... There was something that he wanted Weiss to think about. Picking up the raider’s radio, John turned up the volume and held it up between the two of them. Over the next 10 to 15 seconds, they heard 4 raider lieutenants ordering another 12 men to tie up all of the passengers and crew and stow them in the Dining Hall. These lieutenants consistently referenced their boss, someone called the Hound, as if they were threatening their own men into obedience. 

“Do you want to waste all your aura fighting all of these small fry before we meet these lieutenants and their oh so scary leader?” John’s question wasn’t an attempt to belittle Weiss. There was a chance that she was some kind of genius Huntsman or something, and could overpower all of the raiders in a straight up fight. If that was the case, then hooray for her. If she wasn’t up to it however, he was going to need her to fight a little bit more conservatively. 

After several seconds where Weiss looked halfway tempted to claim that she’d be fine, she finally relented and shook her head. 

“Okay then,” John continued as he yanked a few more dust magazines off of the unconscious raider’s belt and then trussed him up using some nearby duct tape. “What you just did was worthwhile because I’m definitely not underestimating you anymore. Nevertheless, please don’t waste your aura on these low-level henchmen. As the bigger, more physically imposing guy holding the weapon, I’ll act as a distraction. By working together, you can whack these guys on the head without all of the magical pyrotechnics.” When John finished speaking, it was Weiss’s turn to just stand there blinking at him. She appeared to want to find a problem with what he was saying, but couldn’t, and was annoyed with him as a result. 

“Fine,” Weiss finally all but spit out, before turning away and moving towards another access tunnel. 

John drew in a relieved breath as he followed the woman into the access tunnel. Then, almost immediately, he was forced to avert his eyes. Weiss was bending forward quite a bit under the low ceiling, and she was wearing her signature flared out combat skirt... 

“You said you were following orders during your contract. Who’s orders?” 

Weiss didn’t look back when she asked her question, but John wasn’t foolhardy enough to speak directly to her panties. He continued to look at the floor as he figured out what he could say. “I can’t answer that question for more than one reason, but I can confirm that it wasn’t your father.” 

“Okay then, it was General Ironwood,” Weiss continued, with extreme confidence in her voice. “That’s too bad. I always thought that he was a halfway decent human being.” 

Operating under the assumption that Weiss was currently trying to trick him into confirming a theory, John still needed to say something before his lack of an answer became an answer. After trying to hum in a noncommittal way and leave it at that, he almost ran face first into Weiss’s butt. Turning in place, she crouched down in the tunnel and looked back at him. Damn... She wasn’t going to move again until he gave her a response. Drawing in a breath to stall for time, John stared back into Weiss’s glacial blue eyes. “I’ll say it again Weiss. I’m not allowed to answer that question. I will say that whoever created that plan did so with several dozen redundancies in mind. I have the misfortune of being the bodyguard that was spectacularly revealed to you. What you didn’t find out about were the two dozen plus other people that were working alongside me.” 

“So you were the only spy that was terrible at his job, huh?” Weiss’s sadistic smile made it clear that she was enjoying the idea of him being incompetent. 

“Well, sure,” John admitted with a careless shrug of his shoulders. “But I’m also the only one that actually did anything.” As soon as those words left his mouth, John fervently wished that he wasn’t so unbelievably stupid. 

“Oh, how can I forget,” Weiss immediately drawled, as she leaned back against the access tunnel wall. “After tackling me clear off of a stage mid concert for no reason whatsoever, you were dragged out of the venue by security... Very heroic.” 

In the moments that followed Weiss’s words, John focused his entire attention on readjusting the strap of the machine gun around his shoulder. It was all he could do. There was nothing that he was willing to say in his own defense. He definitely didn’t want Weiss to know about the high caliber sniper round that had managed to punch a hole clear through even his future tech aura armor directly into the meat of his shoulder. She was already upset enough about being used as bait. He didn’t think it was wise for her to realize just how close she’d been to having her head explode. Not right now. Not when he needed her cooperation. In fact, never would be for the best. 

Finally, at long last, Weiss just gave up, rolled her eyes and started moving again. “You really are completely hopeless, aren’t you?… Well, let’s go. I want to get this over with.” 

Nodding his acceptance, John obediently followed Weiss’s white lacy panties down the tunnel. After her attitude just now, he didn’t feel any guilt whatsoever at enjoying the view.


	5. John Freeman Doesn't Enjoy Air Travel

I don't own anything related to the RWBY franchise

Chapter 5 - John Freeman Doesn't Enjoy Air Travel

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6 Months after Jaune's escape from Arc Castle and 1 year before John boards a flight to Vale…

One of the best parts of working and living in a future tech laboratory in the middle of a military installation was all of the super cool training equipment that you could get your hands on. John spent a considerable amount of his time lifting weights, punching and kicking sandbags, running on a treadmill, using a rowing machine, etc, but he was severely lacking in real hands on training and there wasn't much that he could do about it.

That was where the rig came in.

The rig was a sophisticated simulated reality that John could enter by strapping himself down into a very complicated haptic chair, and donning a helmet designed to interact with his brain. The sights and situations that he encountered inside of the simulator looked and felt real, which allowed him to gain experience in a wide variety of areas. Of course for the most part, John had used this rig to study how various types of Grimm behaved, how fast they can move, how agile, flexible or strong, whether or not they're pack animals or alphas and how they react to taking damage.

There was one other simulation that John liked to use however, and he wasn't sure what it said about him as a person...

The simulation was called special operations and it was a military training program that catered to a very specific type of military operative. John wasn't exactly sure who this simulation was supposed to train because the rig was waaaay too expensive to be mass produced, but the special operations simulation forced the person using it to complete a wide variety of missions, in a wide array of locations and under varying degrees of difficulty. The reason John worried about what this simulation said about him personally was because for every protection detail or rescue mission that he received there were just as many assassination and saboteur missions. The missions were picked at random by the program that ran the simulation so John ended up doing whatever was assigned, and he had to admit that he enjoyed the challenge despite the fact that the darker covert ops made him uncomfortable.

Today's mission was an assassination, and it was turning out to be quite the pain in the butt. Every single aspect of the target's defenses seemed to be growing stronger by the second, and the target herself had changed from being a normal civilian CEO to also being an aura user long after the operation had already begun, forcing John to direct his squadmates to their various fallback locations, even as he made some serious plan alterations on the fly.

"Alpha 2, draw the new enemy perimeter guards away from the backup extraction point with your illusions while Alpha 1 continues to the vantage. I need eyes on the 56th floor of the building but when we're done here we're going to need to leave in a hurry."

"10-4 boss, Alpha 2 clearing the extraction point," the generic male voice replied in response to John's order. Then for several seconds no one said a word… "Extraction point clear, moving on towards the vantage point," Alpha 1 finally added in an unemotional tone of voice.

"Alpha 1 has iron sights on the building," a similar female voice added almost immediately after.

With a nod at his squad members' responses, John began belaying down the side of the glass paned corporate building towards the 56th floor office, where his "newly an aura user" target and her 6 aura using guards were waiting unaware. In less than 5 seconds, Alpha 2, his sniper, would smash open the window using several incendiary dust rounds and then John would belay inside at full speed during the moment of surprise.

Then the situation changed.

"Sir, 14 more regular guards just ran into the room and they appear to be at high alert," Alpha 2 called out as she observed the room through her sniper scope.

"Understood," John replied in a calm tone of voice. "Alpha 2 alternate to tear gas rounds instead of incendiary and fire at the window as soon as Alpha 1 arrives to support me. Alpha 1, I'll need to look like I'm a part of a squad of mercs when I enter that office rather than a single man, so I need you at the vantage point now. Charlie 1 and 2, be prepared to set off the charges, Bravo 1 and 2, please proceed up the stairwells at full speed."

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

The 4 distant rifle shots slammed into the window below John one after another until the spiderweb cracks that they caused in the glass suddenly converged and the window shattered into a million pieces.

Even as a billowing green cloud of smoke poured out of the newly shattered window, John belayed inside with his nanobot armor up and shielding his face, and then he rolled to the side when hundreds of bullets sprayed haphazardly in his general direction. As about a dozen mirror images of his body created by Alpha 1's illusion Semblance leapt away in every direction, John forced his body to move with a calm sense of lethal assurance that was visible to the naked eye. The fact of the matter was that he wasn't going to actually be the assassin during this particular mission. Not anymore. That outcome was no longer possible, because too many things had changed. Now, he was the red herring instead. He was the waving scarf concealing the magic happening behind the scenes. What this meant was that he needed to look a lot more dangerous than he really was and that meant full strength armor and an enormously powerful attack.

"Would've been nice to have any variety of martial arts training right about now," John muttered, while pulling out his rifleshield to deflect bullets away from his face as he dashed sideways across the room. Then the 14 non aura using guards were upon his attacking squad and the vast, green smoke filled office became a cacophony of grunts and rapid gunfire.

John needed a big and showy attack that was relatively easy to pull off… Then he thought of one, realized that it really was his best bet, and began shaking his head at how one dimensional his fighting style currently was… Brute strength would win the day, or at least make him look like he actually posed a threat... Moving up behind a six meter tall and 4 foot wide marble and rebar column that was holding up the vaulted ceiling of the office, John holstered his shield, crouched to wrap his arms just 4 feet up its length, and then he recruited all of the aura in his body towards both his muscles and the strength contained in his nanobot armor. Over the next few loud and chaotic moments, he felt his armor absorbing the impacts from at least a dozen bullets as he heaved the column down and to the right with every scrap of unnatural strength that his body possessed. Then it happened. With an ear piercing shriek of shearing metal and crumbling rock coming from both the base and the apex of the column, the entire damned thing started coming free all at once and the ceiling started sagging down to crash into the room.

John never even noticed the fact that the ceiling was falling in behind him. He was far too busy making use of the massive marble column that he was suddenly holding.

With a loud and berserk scream growl mixture that made him sound like he was the worst kind of meathead, John started rapidly spinning even as he approached the main body of the bodyguard force. He was waving the entire column as if it was an impossibly enormous bat and making a massive spectacle of himself exactly like most strength Semblance fighters like to do. Then, when everyone who was fast enough to get out of the way of his swings had already done so, John completed one more upwards rotation and released the column to fly through the air towards the objective and her aura using bodyguards.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Across the rapidly deteriorating office, the target's lead bodyguard ripped her radio away from her face in order to yank her boss down and under a massive stone column that was suddenly flying their way through the green fog obscuring their vision. Then, when she was finished rolling the both of them back up to her feet, she turned to regard one of her men. "Get rid of that Strength Semblance user however you can while we make a retreat to the bolt hole elevator!"

"But, Boss! We don't need to retreat! We can take these guys." the tall and confident looking bodyguard replied in a truly frustrated tone of voice.

"We are bodyguards, not arena fighters,'' the Leader admonished the man in a disgusted sounding voice. "Do your job and do it now!" Even as she said those words, the lead bodyguard began pulling her boss back through the room towards the express elevator that would take them directly to an underground airpad and a heavily armored VTOL contained within.

"Why aren't we taking the stairs," one of the nearby aura using bodyguards called out as he covered their retreat with his massive armored body.

"I'm getting reports that the emergency stairwells are being attacked by a pair of B ranked Hunters with martial arts skills and high agility Semblances," the bodyguard leader replied with a grim look on her face. We're being pincered and we're running out of room, but the guards stationed in the underground claim that no one's managed to infiltrate the airpad."

With a nod of understanding the squad leader abruptly turned to press the elevator door's combination and open the elevator's foot thick solid steel doors.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As another dozen or so bullets slammed into John's fully armored arms and legs, he suddenly found himself with less than a minute of his aura remaining and 54 floors between him and his extraction point. On the bright side, it looked like these bodyguards were finally taking his attack seriously enough that they were retreating, on the other hand… Shit…

"Screeeeeeee!"

One of the aura using bodyguards was suddenly sprinting directly at John through the green smoke while releasing a noise so loud and high pitched it was damaging his eardrums right through the protections that his aura armor provided. John flinched, then he almost fell to a knee and then he was bodily tackled by the approaching bodyguard, and the man was trying to shove a pair of aura covered daggers into his guts. While the aura armor could and did manage to stop the thrust of the man's daggers, the toll that John's Semblance took on his aura levels almost immediately tripled and the time that he could continue maintaining his armor dropped considerably.

We'll… Damn… It was time to go…

John allowed the attacking bodyguard to force him across the room towards the shattered windows at which point the man proved that he was committed to his duty by pushing them both directly into open air. Then, even as the 2 of them began plummeting towards the ground below, John grabbed the man around the shoulders, braced his feet against his waist, and then kicked off as hard as he could. After taking a look at the ground below them, John had realized that he needed to use the attacking man as a counterweight so that he could aim his body in the desired direction. As the attacking aura user's body careened into and then through a window back into the corporate building, John found himself soaring outwards away from the building and directly towards a large decorative pool of water that flanked the building's front courtyard. Even as he dropped towards this rather shallow pool of water, John allowed his reactive armor to moved back into their bands because he needed to conserve his aura reserves. He only had 4 percent of his aura remaining and he was going to need it when he finally hit that water.

Splash! Crack!

Ouch… Judging by the simulated pain being introduced into the meat of his calf muscles, John probably had a broken leg or maybe even 2… Apparently, the pool hadn't been deep enough to slow his descent and he hadn't had enough aura remaining to completely absorb his body's impact with the stone at the bottom. Still… He was back on the ground and he was jerkily swimming across the bottom of the pool towards the extraction area… Soon enough, he was hobbling into the back of a nondescript SUV, laying down in the back, and letting the getaway driver do his thing.

"You are now leaving the simulation area, you are now desynchronizing," The computer that governed the simulator informed John in a robotic voice.

With a jerk, John suddenly opened his eyes to find himself back in the lab. After allowing a few seconds to pass where he allowed his sensory confusion to ebb away, he pulled off the VR helmet and turned towards a nearby computer screen to see how the rest of his operation panned out… Any minute now…

"You were forced to retreat. You failed your mission," a smooth but masculine voice called out from almost directly behind John's seat.

"I was merely funnelling the target to where I needed her to be," John idly responded, before his body suddenly tightened up and he almost broke his neck turning around.

The General James Ironwood, five star, full regalia, was standing just a few feet behind John, where he'd apparently been observing his operation through the computer monitor. Due mostly to how the man's interest suddenly returned back to the operation taking place on the monitor, John started to suspect that the 30 something year old military man was the reason why his mission had suddenly become so annoyingly complex…

When the General's attention continued to remain fixated on the computer screen, John decided that he could do the same. Back on the screen, the bolthole elevator's doors were closing around both the bodyguard team and their charge and beginning to descend down towards the underground airpad.

"What's the most effective way to immediately destroy fully aura armored Hunters and Huntresses," John asked in a quiet voice while they watched the computer monitor.

"Burn them more than their aura can shield or... crush them," Ironwood haltingly responded as a new awareness started growing in his tone.

And that's when it happened...

A series of very powerful shaped explosives suddenly detonated both in the penthouse elevator control room and the ground level maintenance access to the elevator. Around the time the elevator containing John's target and her bodyguards dropped to the 20th floor, a concussive wave of enormously intense air pressure met both the top and the bottom of the elevator chassis, flattening the solid steel box like a pancake. Not even a second later, a wave of unbelievably intense flames filled the entire elevator shaft to incinerate anything that remained. The elevator was both crushed and then vaporized at almost exactly the same time...

Both the target and her bodyguards were very, very, very dead…

For several moments, both John and Ironwood were completely still as they watched the rest of John's team quietly leave the mission area. Then John pulled himself out of the Rig's haptic seating and turned to face Dr. Polendina's patron. He'd never met the General before, and if he'd known the man was coming, he'd have liked to have been wearing his helmet and gear.

"So you're Dr. Polendina's new research assistant... I must say… That was a very… thorough way of accomplishing the mission..."

With no real way of responding to Ironwood's implied question without sounding childish, and Pietro out picking up some new tech gear, John merely nodded his head respectfully and waited for the General to say his piece. So far as he was aware, there wasn't a kind or classy way to murder someone, so he'd focused his attention on getting the job done without suffering any losses...

"As I'm sure you already know, I'm the one who made your simulation more difficult just now, but you're not actually the reason why I'm here today," Ironwood finally explained in a calm and indifferent tone. "I merely dropped by to check up on our dear Penny, and then I drifted over when your training caught my interest."

After walking over to the computer monitor, Ironwood stared down at a playback of John using his reactive armor with a level of curiosity that bordered on envy or even avarice. Then he turned back to John and stared at him for several moments in a row. "The good Doctor has explained to me that it's your Semblance that allows you to use the nanobots…"

"Yes sir," John immediately admitted. "It's quite a bit harder than it looks, but essentially I fuel them with aura and direct them with my will."

"Amazing… Simply amazing," Ironwood breathed out while nodding his head both slowly and repeatedly. I have a proposition for you… How would you like to test out how combat effective that armor really is?... I have an operation coming up that will require several teenaged boys and girls, and I like the idea of bringing you on board. I've already seen for myself that you're both thoughtful and meticulous."

"Sir…" John slowly hedged as he drew a hand back through his newly black dyed hair. "For reasons that I'd rather not explain, It's not safe for me to walk around in the general public."

"Yes... You're in hiding from the rest of the Arc family, I know, and I understand your reservations," Ironwood immediately replied. "Let me make one thing very clear to you though… The only reason that you're still free and not locked up in a tower dungeon inside of Arc Castle is because Polendina made me agree to help you. I misdirected the Arc forces away from these labs and I obscured your features from the facial recognition software used in the Seekerbots that the Arc family borrowed from the military. Without my ongoing help and goodwill, you wouldn't have lasted a month without having to run to the ends of the Atlesian tundra. Now… I'm not saying that I'll sell you out if you don't help me… but I might be less inclined to be helpful to you in the future…"

"I… I see... " John breathed out as he straightened even further and squared up with the General. "What is this operation? How can I help?"

General James Ironwood grinned as the Arc family's youngest proved to be just as sharp as Polendina always said he was... "Well it's like this John… The heiress of the SDC, a young Lady by the name of Weiss Schnee, will soon be performing in a series of concerts all around Atlas…."

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1 Year Later, on an Airship crossing the ocean between Atlas and Vale (Currently under attack by a group of raiders)...

"Hey kid stop!" The gun waving raider angrily called out as he dashed after the black haired teenager that he'd just seen running passed an intersection of hallways.

Then he was abruptly knocked unconscious from behind by a length of metal railing swung almost lazily by a short and petite platinum haired woman.

After quickly knocking out 5 similarly weak, gun toting raiders as they moved through the airship towards it's bridge, John was beginning to wonder if any of these pirates were even worth worrying about from an offensive standpoint. At this point, he and Weiss weren't sticking to the access tunnels anymore, but were moving quietly as they jogged throughout the various hallways. In less than 30 seconds they were going to arrive at their destination and confront this Raider leader, The Hound...

Booooom!

A thick gust of smoky black fumes, blew around the corner at the end of the hallway, causing both John and Weiss to drop to a crawl.

"This smoke is coming from the Bridge," Weiss urged as she wiggled forward beneath the acrid cloud. "What are those cretins thinking?! We're all going down if they've damaged the ship's controls!"

The radio clipped to the shoulder strap of John's machine gun suddenly started squawking, as several raiders asked just what in the hell was going on. The response that they received from their leader on the Bridge, caused chills to run up John's spine. The raiders' mission was a failure. The airship controls were now in pieces due to a blasting charge mishap. The airship was cruising along just fine by itself for now, but that would only last for another thirty minutes, at which point the Captain of the ship was supposed to manually fly it through Vale's coastline mountain range. The raiders were all being ordered to gather at the forward deck, where they would steal all of the airship's lifeboats.

By the time he turned to face Weiss, John's face was a mask of tightly controlled outrage. "Okay. We're done conserving energy. We need to protect those lifeboats at all costs. When the time comes, I work best as a close quarters tank. Can you pull off long distance?" Even as he asked that question, John started hauling ass towards the forward deck.

"I can create glyphs from a distance, but at the moment they only cause status effects like null gravity, double gravity, slow, stick, launchpad, bind, shield, vacuum and flip," Weiss huffed out as she followed her companion down the hall. "The dust in my my weapon allows me to do more, but... Never mind. We don't have time to go to my cabin. I'll focus my efforts on slowing and tripping up your enemies."

Nodding his head as they turned a corner, John brutally closelined the neck of a surprised raider, punched a second one down half a flight of stairs and then emptied a machine gun clip into the armored side of a third further down the hallway. Now that they were just a single hallway away from the forward deck of the airship, John's wrist and ankle bands were shrinking to just three quarters their original size and his body was beginning to turn a dull black color. It felt… ticklish. John wasn't a huge fan of feeling the nanobots directly against his skin. While he knew that the feeling was only in his imagination, when he didn't wear his foundation suit, he felt like his skin was crawling with tiny little bugs. While the imagery was technically accurate, there was no way he'd be able to feel it given that the nanobots were microscopic in size. Shaking off his poorly timed heebie jeebies, he focused his attention back on the task at hand.

In passing, Weiss kicked the armored raider directly in the chin, just to make sure that he stayed down. Then she was behind her companion again, giving the black suit that was growing along his exposed skin a thoughtful look.

With 25 percent of his aura armor now in place, John kicked the metal door leading to the forward deck clear off of its hinges, grabbed ahold of its edges even as it flew through the air and dashed directly towards the main body of the raiders. As a cluster of about ten men turned in his direction and raised their weapons, he leapt towards them and held the door up like a shield. Only one or two dust rounds managed to impact against the door before John slammed into the crowd of raiders and smashed them to the ground like bowling pins. Before his momentum could come to an end, he rolled forward off of the pile of bodies, threw the door like a Frisbee at some nearby raiders and then launched himself at a distant man that was trying to aim a gun on him. He needn't have bothered. All of the sudden, as if physical reality was malfunctioning, the man's body lifted up off of the ground, and he started flailing around in the air. He wasn't bound by gravity anymore as there was an intricately designed anti-gravity glyph beneath his feet. Weiss was clearly doing her part, which meant that the attackers outside of his immediate reach were about to suffer all manner of hijinks. In return, John had to make sure that he remained the highly visible center of attention. It was time to pour on the speed.

Partially concealed behind one of the airship's lifeboats, Weiss was focusing on creating chaos with her Semblance. In order to be as efficient as possible, she was aiming most of her attention at her companion's rear and at the raiders that were keeping at a distance. Then, all of the sudden, that prospect became quite a bit more difficult, as her black suited companion's speed more than tripled, and he became a blur of unrestrained movement. Shredded leather flew from the boy's dress shoes to litter the deck and he splintered the wood underneath his feet. He bounced back and forth from one raider to the next, leaving behind broken legs, ankles and feet whenever he couldn't just render his opponents unconscious. He was also spraying dust rounds in his wake that collided with upraised weapons, hands and feet. More than once, Weiss was forced to use her Semblance to give the boy a platform to bounce off of, when he lost purchase and slid across the deck. No matter how you looked at it, the boy was barely in control of the power that he was using. It didn't seem to matter. His efforts were still devastatingly effective. Not one of the raiders could land a hit on him, and trying to aim their guns was a waste of effort. Less than twenty seconds later, the Stage Hand threw the last of the low ranked raiders to the deck.

"Very impressive!"

A gigantic man in dark red armor, wearing a red bandana, suddenly stepped out of the airship's interior. In his wake, were three women and a man, all of whom were holding onto a child sized hostage.

While slowly turning in place, John manipulated a featureless black mask to grow over the upper portion of his face. He also started preparing to use his armor at a hundred percent. He wasn't going to have a lot of time at full strength, because his aura capacity was only at about 70 percent.

"If you take even one step towards us with that freaky Semblance of yours, we're going to cut open these children's necks," the leader growled out menacingly. "I don't know what kind of Semblance allows someone to move like you do, but you won't be fast enough to save all four of them."

After stretching his neck and shoulders as if he was warming up for a workout, John aimed a look of savage brutality at the raider leader. He wasn't going to get a second chance at making the kind of impression that he needed. "You're right," he finally called out in a confident tone of voice. "I won't make it to all four of the hostages, but you'll still find yourself down three out of four lieutenants."

"You have an extremely unrealistic amount of self-confidence," the raider leader drawled, in an amused sounding voice.

"No, no I don't," John immediately replied, with an amused smile of his own. "I have a completely reasonable amount of confidence when taking my Semblance into consideration. After all, My Semblance isn't even a speed or strength type at all. I'm a rare type of emitter that can warp physical reality to my needs."

"Is that so," the leader mused with his arms crossed over his chest. "And why oh why should mere physical reality scare me so much?"

"If you don't release those hostages and leave a lifeboat for the passengers to use, I'll more than quadruple the weight on both the lifeboats while you're using them." With his hands splayed out at his sides, John shrugged as if to say, "it just can't be helped."

For about fifteen whole seconds, the raider leader enjoyed some really heartfelt laughter, shaking his head with his eyes closed and everything. "No. No way," he finally barked out, while shaking his head and rolling his eyes. "I'm not dumb. I saw the way you just moved! As impressive as you are, you're a strength and speed Semblance without a doubt. You're no emitter…"

"I'll prove it to you then," John called out, as he raised his right hand palm out. "I'll subject you to two times gravity for just a few moments. It won't hurt you, but it'll prove my point."

"Heh, hehe, fine. This I've gotta see," the leader drawled out in a purposefully unhinged tone of voice. "Just keep in mind that the kiddies will sport brand new ventilation holes in their necks if you hurt me."

With his palm facing outwards as if he was pushing on something, John pointed his arm at the leader and waited. If Weiss didn't come through for him soon, he was going to be completely discredited in the eyes of the raiders, and the situation was going to get… tragic.

All of the sudden, as if from nowhere, a large white glyph appeared above the raider leader, and he staggered into a crouch. He didn't fall to his knees, but he did grunt in effort as he strained under the weight of his armor.

"The lifeboats on this airship are only given enough upward thrust to reach a suitable piece of land in a controlled descent," John explained in a casual tone. "If you don't free those children and leave one of the boats, I'll make your trip to the ocean floor both quick and lethal."

"The answer's obvious then," the leader spat out, as the extra gravity piled on his body suddenly disappeared. "I'll take both boats and spread out the hostages."

"I'll still send your lifeboats to the ocean if you do that" John replied, with a small, sad, shake of his head. "If you leave this airship on both of those lifeboats, I'll have nothing to lose, because I'll be going down with the ship. Killing those children will be a sucky thing for me to have to do during my final moments, but I know where I stand when it comes to moral mathematics. Raiders like you are monsters. You kill innocent people for a living. Drowning those children will save hundreds of people in the long run." John forced himself to believe every single word that he said, so that true conviction would shine from within his eyes. He poured his focus into the idea of bringing a monstrous form of justice down on these raiders.

"Ye... You're serious aren't you," the leader finally spluttered out, completely bewildered. "You're as much a monster as we are…"

Taking a step towards the closest lifeboat, John rotated his arm in an overlarge windmill motion as if he was warming up for a feat of strength. "Well, I suppose I could always just destroy both boats and we could all go down together. We all know I have the strength to make those arrangements."

"No! Don't," the leader called out. "We'll do exactly as you say, but only if you can assure us of one thing! How do we know you won't send us to the sea after we do as you say?"

"It's simple really," John replied in a cold and brutal tone of voice. You are Taylor Teller, also known as The Hound, and you're a well-known C ranked Hunter from Atlas. Today, for the very first time, you're going to leave witnesses behind at one of your raids. You've always allowed the White Fang to take the blame for your raids, but this time you won't be able to. After today, your money, resources, home base and good name will immediately be stripped from you, and your very well-known face will be posted on wanted posters all around the world. You see Taylor. I don't have to kill you... You're already dead."

With a casualness that spooked all of the raiders, claws suddenly erupted from the end of John's fingers, and he gouged deep furrows into the hull of one of the lifeboats. "Are you sure you don't want to go down with the ship, Taylor? It might be easier than the life you're going to live from this point forward…"

"No! No... we'll go. Just, for Oum's sake, stay where you are." The raiders were all completely freaked out, as they were holding the children to their chests las if they were comfort blankets. They edged sideways across the deck to keep John in front of them and they scrambled into the distant lifeboat as if the hounds of Hell were after them. At the very last second, just as the lifeboat edged off of the deck, the four hostages were thrown out the door. John raised an open palm towards them and a white anti-gravity Glyph caught the children to settle them onto the deck.

After the raiders were gone, John immediately let his armor return to its band form and then moved to check on the children. Then he stopped in place and resisted the urge to slap himself. The children were recoiling away from him as if he was a particularly lethal form of Grimm. He'd scared the living hell out of them. Well... Damn. Soon enough, Weiss emerged from behind the remaining lifeboat, to kneel next to the traumatized children and fuss over them properly. John made himself busy with a nearby coil of safety rope. It was a tricky bit of maneuvering, but he managed to thoroughly truss up all 14 of the newly deserted henchmen and stow them just inside of the Forward deck's entry door. He also kept his eyes on the mountains growing in the distance. He and Weiss were going to need to get to work like ASAP.

"Weiss," John finally called out, when the children were successfully calmed down and relocated into the remaining lifeboat. "Please go and collect the women and children from the Dining Hall. The one remaining lifeboat will only be able to carry a little less than two thirds of this ship's current passengers. Leave all of the crew and the male passengers tied up for now. We need to keep them from growing ambitious."

Turning away from the children, Weiss gave her black haired companion a completely appalled look. Then the expression slowly eased away and a look of confusion took its place. "What will you be doing while I'm doing all of that?"

"I'll be checking out the Bridge," John sighed out, in a resigned tone of voice. "Through a mixture of my Semblance and the armor that I'm wearing; I might be able to interact with the ship's controls… kind of. It's not going to be a smooth ride, like, at all.

"What are our chances," Weiss asked, as the two of them entered the ship proper and moved towards the central hallway.

"My chances," John immediately corrected. "Not very good... Thankfully, Weiss, you fall squarely under the women and children demographic. "You're getting on that lifeboat."

"You're underestimating me again," Weiss immediately accused, poking the boy on the chest for good measure. "I'm a trainee Hunter heading to Beacon Academy. I have a landing strategy just like everyone else."

"I don't have a landing strategy and neither did Taylor Teller the C ranked raider," John pointed out in a completely candid voice. "I'm not underestimating you Weiss. I'm extremely impressed by your abilities. I believe you when you say that you'd survive free fall. That doesn't change the fact that you'd freeze to death on top of those mountains. There's also the fact that the remaining lifeboat is going to be landing on the coast, far away from civilization. I want you to grab Myrtenmaster and protect the passengers from the Grimm. It'll also be up to you to pick which men should join you, because there won't be room for even a quarter of them. It's going to suck, but you're going to need to prioritize young fathers and then the able bodied. Take the people that look like they can defend themselves. I have no idea how long it'll take for rescue to arrive."

After opening and shutting her mouth half a dozen times, Weiss harrumphed loudly and crossed her arms under her chest. She really did need to protect the passengers and they both knew it.

"Good luck Weiss," John breathed out as he passed the girl and began moving down the hallway. He only had a little over fifteen minutes left to get himself situated on the Bridge.

"John, wait..."

Stopping dead in his tracks, John turned to look over his shoulder with shock clearly written across his face. Even back when the two of them had spent a lot of time together setting up her various concerts, she'd never once owned up to remembering his name. She'd called him Stage Hand over and over again, as if bossing him around gave her some kind of twisted satisfaction. If you'd put a gun to his head and asked him to tell the absolute truth, John would've said that Weiss Schnee would never say his name. The fact that she was using his name now, with whatever tenuous trust they'd once had in ruins, had to be a sign of the apocalypse. Long story short, John found himself staring back at Weiss, open mouthed.

With eyes that were drifting to stage left as if she couldn't quite look John in the face, Weiss drew in a deep breath. "You are the most able bodied of all the men on this ship. If you don't think you'll survive this flight through the mountains, then why don't you come with me and help protect the passengers."

In the moments that followed Weiss's super adorable attempt to save his life, John forced himself to think about the men that were about to be left behind in the Dining Hall. He was attempting to follow a plan of sorts, and he didn't need the Heiress shaking his resolve like this. "I appreciate the sentiment Weiss," he began, in a carefully controlled tone of voice. "But there are compelling reasons why I need to try piloting the airship. The first reason is obvious. I don't want to desert the passengers that we'd otherwise be forced to leave behind. The second reason is less obvious but equally important. If I manage to get the ship through the mountains, I'll be able to communicate the lifeboat's landing coordinates to the military. Those coordinates mean the difference between you spending a day waiting for pickup and having to make your way back to civilization on foot."

For the second time in just as many minutes, Weiss was stuck still, opening and shutting her mouth like a goldfish. Then, when she snapped out of her thoughtful silence, she swiveled around to look away from him. "Fine. Do what you must. Know this though. I hate roughing it in the wilderness more than anything. I'll be very upset if you don't make it through those mountains…"

It was a good thing that Weiss was looking away from him, because John couldn't quite stop a wide and goofy smile from slipping onto his face. The heiress was a ghost from his past that had caused him quite a few lingering regrets. Despite the less than perfect circumstances, it was nice that he was being given a chance to make some form of amends. After nodding that he'd be okay, John finally cued in that Weiss was still looking away from him. He'd have to use his words. "I'll be as safe as possible, Weiss. Please return the favor by being extremely cautious down there in the wild. From what I recall, the coastline is teeming with bug type Grimm like Blind Worms, Centinels and Lancers. If I were you I'd fill the lifeboat with every scrap of the food that this ship is carrying and then I'd use it as a base of operations. I don't have to tell you that keeping up everyone's moral is essential, so I suggest you make use of that wonderful singing voice of yours."

After turning back at John's sudden outpouring of advice, and then turning just a little pink at his praise, Weiss nodded her head in quiet understanding. The Grimm can sense human despair for miles. She really would need to keep up the civilian's morale.

"Oh and one more thing," John added, while dashing back to drop a hand on Weiss's shoulder. "This is important Weiss. Avoid going anywhere near the ocean, even if you're running low on food. I've read reports that there's a massive Sea Feilong prowling around the area. I'd rather you be overly cautious and inconvenienced than unlucky and dead."

"Now you're just mothering me," Weiss grumbled as she very slowly removed the boy's hand from atop her shoulder.

"I'm brothering you actually," John replied in a casual voice. "Force of long habit. I have eight sisters after all." Even as he shared that interesting little factoid, John backpedaled down the hall and then dashed through a bulkhead door heading towards his cabin. If he was going to operate the controls of an airship this massive, he was going to need his helmet's HUD to understand what the Hell he was looking at.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

By the time the mountains looked more like a wall of rock growing outside of the Bridge windows, John knew for sure that he was about to lose a few years of his life to anxiety. Controlling the airship was like trying to play a first person shooter video game while using a full sized piano as a controller... The right buttons were all there, but there were too damned many of them and they were too far apart.

John was currently standing in front of a burnt out and melted control panel, with his hand pressed down into the panel near the burnt out wires within. The bands around his wrists that comprised his reactive armor were all but gone, and in their place was a rubbery substance. This substance felt solid enough as it dropped away from his hands, but it became softer as its tendrils melted down into the destroyed control bank. Through these tendrils, John's nanobots were connected to the airship's different flight systems and they were also sending signals directly to his helmet. By manipulating the nanobots with his aura, John would be able to operate the different systems of the ship, but the nanobots weren't capable of relaying what they were currently doing directly into his brain. This would normally be a huge problem, and it was the reason why his HUD helmet was the real hero in this situation. Even if John could affect the airship's flight systems, he wouldn't have known what effect his efforts were having if not for the different visual readouts that were currently being displayed on his HUD.

Long story short, hypothetically, John could steer the ship, and the monitor lens on the inside of his helmet would display what he was doing...

Through trial and error, John had just finished ironing out what each system does, as well as how he can operate it with the nanobots. That wasn't to say that he could pilot the ship any better than an ape trying to drive a car. Well… Maybe a little better. By stretching his brain to its very limits, John was tenuously under control of the twelve VTOL thrusters rimming the entire ship, and the two large plasma cannons placed above and below the airship's midpoint. As per the ship's original programming, the flight control system automatically levels its flight path at a predetermined elevation, but if need be, John could also deactivate this safeguard and force the ship to both pitch and roll. For the purposes of passenger comfort, this particular airship had only ever performed extremely gentle yaw style turns with its body almost completely flat to the ground. John was hopeful that he'd be able to do the same today, but realistically speaking... this was about to suck...

Superimposed over John's right eye on the HUD of his helmet was a Primary flight display, a Direction Finder, an Altitude Indicator, a System Information Display, and a Radar Display. Between these digital displays and the 360-degree view that John had from the ship's elevated Bridge, he hoped to be able to see where the Hell he was going. Of course, he'd have asked the Captain to just give him directions through the mountains, but the man had taken a chunk of debris to the head during the destruction of the Bridge and was unconscious as a result. Four other crewmen were manning some of the rear machine gun emplacements that can be operated manually. They had no idea how to steer the ship even if it was fully functional, so they were preparing to do what they were capable of doing. Off to John's side, sitting in the copilot chair, was a female engineer by the name of Payla. Payla was the current recipient of two broken wrists, courtesy of their mutual friends the raiders. While her injuries rendered her useless when it came to helping out in a physical way, John was quite happy to have a second pair of eyes up here in the Bridge. So far, she hadn't said much of anything to him, which made sense in a morbid kind of way. John was getting the impression that the woman didn't expect to be alive in less than five minutes.

When the airship finally reached Vale's coastline, the System Information Display in John's helmet, warned him that the airship's sole remaining lifeboat was taking off for seemingly no reason. John just smiled in relief. He was pretty sure that he'd given Weiss the harder job out of the two of them. Picking and choosing who would get to leave a doomed airship using triage-esque judgments couldn't have been a pleasant task. John was extremely grateful that the heiress was so strong willed and capable. Yeah... As bizarre as it sounds, he'd gotten pretty lucky... Now all he needed to do was complete his side of the bargain and get this tub between those peaks.

At first, John had wondered why he couldn't just climb the airship high above the mountains so that all of the finicky navigation wasn't even necessary. Then, when he actually took a look at the displays in his helmet, he saw that the airship's thrusters had a max height envelope well below the mountain peaks. According to the System Information Display, this height envelope was mostly due to the thruster's tendency to freeze solid and then explode. As versatile as Dust was, it was also a very volatile form of fuel, and it didn't react well to subzero temperatures.

After giving the idea a little more thought, there was a second reason why climbing the airship above the mountains was a bad idea. Giant Nevermores (humongous bird Grimm) prowled the sky at those elevations, and they didn't take kindly to intruders. While John did have control over the airship's two largest turret cannons, he wasn't going to lie to himself about being some kind of expert marksman. He was on a fast moving object from which he'd be forced to aim at another fast moving object. In order for him to actually hit a Legendary sized flying Grimm moving at the speeds that they move, the damned thing would have to be right on top of them.

Long story short, John was about to get some real time piloting experience. Ironically, this was exactly the kind of stuff that he'd always craved when he was being held captive, and yet he resented having it forced on him with no warning whatsoever.

"Still beats the safety of the castle," John whispered to himself in a determined sounding voice. It was game time. He could do this!

Using a mixture of the altitude and radar display, John plotted an open looking course as if he was piloting a boat through hundreds of little islands. The problem was that what he saw with his naked eye only loosely coincided with the radar view, and he found himself performing hundreds of tiny micro-adjustments as soon as he entered the range. Almost immediately, a cold sweat formed on John's brow as his readouts showed him the effects of wind and air pressure on the hull of the airship. He was bouncing and bobbing all around his plotted course and there didn't seem to be much that he could do about it. Then, he saw on the radar that he was flying towards a tightly compacted cluster of different mountain peaks, and he knew for sure that he was straying off of the intended path. Damn... Leaving the intended path meant danger...

Leaving the intended path meant the Grimm…

With a small flicker of his aura, John cued up a small display on his right eye that showed where the two cannons were currently aiming. He wasn't optimistic enough to think that he wasn't going to need the weapons. While he was doing his very best to keep his emotions under control, there were several men sitting around in the Dining Hall that were alternatively scared stiff or angry as all hell that they'd been left behind. Then there was the crew. They were trying their best, but they were freaking out almost as much as the passengers. The problem was that all five members of the crew knew exactly how badly the ship's systems had been damaged, and they didn't have any reason to believe that John could salvage the situation. What this meant for John was that every single Grimm between him and his goal was going to sense the negativity pouring off the ship and know exactly where they were.

After easing the ship into a slow yaw forty degrees to Starboard in order to slip between two jagged peaks, John allowed his eyes to track over to Payla's pain damped face. He was, in fact, able to control the ship, and she was witnessing that fact with her very own eyes. Now was about the time he needed her to snap out of her pain and fear, and actually take part in their survival. With that in mind, John drew in a deep breath and tried to pour on the charm. "Ahem. Payla right? Thank you for agreeing to join me up here, even though you have reservations about my abilities. As you can see, I am indeed capable of controlling the airship. My biggest problem right now is that I'm tracking a metric ton of different systems all at same time. Eventually, I'm all but certain to miss something that a more experienced pilot would catch. Can you keep an eye on our flight path for any obstacles or Grimm that the system doesn't alert me to?"

"Yes... Sir. Keeping an eye out... Sir." The tone of Payla's voice was strained by discomfort and any respect that she was giving him was purely out of long habit, but it was still a better response than John had expected. He wasn't her captain, and he was sure she hated the idea of some untrained kid being the master of her destiny. It was good enough. Hopefully, he would earn more respect from her as time went by.

For the next five minutes, John poured his entire focus into weaving his way through the mountain range with as much finesse as he could... Which of course meant not much. Over and over again, he found himself having to turn around to attempt an alternate route, and the effort left his legs trembling with unreleased tension. Every couple of minutes, rapid gunfire could be heard from the stern, where the four gunners were taking down the random eagle or owl Grimm that caught on to their presence. So far they hadn't encountered anything the machine guns couldn't handle, so John had left the two larger cannons cycling through a full power standby.

"Up ahead, there's a way through those three peaks, but you'll have to pull off a forty-five degree turn after passing the first two with no loss of speed or altitude."

Those words were the first time Payla had spoken up to offer any advice, causing John to gasp in surprise and bodily twitch in response. Truth be told, he'd forgotten that the woman was even sitting there, but apparently she just hadn't had anything to offer. The woman's advice was good though, and well timed. John had been erring on the side of caution until now, but he couldn't afford to make a hundred more U turns with a finite amount of fuel.

With an indrawn breath and a slow nod of his head, John eased the ship into a wide approach that would hopefully see him making as shallow a turn as possible between the peaks. As they neared the rocky slopes and the blizzards blanketing their sides, the ship rattled and bucked and John's teeth clenched in response. As fast as the airship was moving, the slopes felt like a mouth that was closing around them on both sides. Then, it was time to turn the ship, and John needed to do so with enthusiasm. Over the next five seconds, he strengthened the power to all of the Forward Port side thrusters, aiming them out at a 70-degree angle so that they'd push the forward deck both up and in the starboard direction. The entire ship creaked as it was subjected to torque far beyond the ordinary, but it held and didn't lose any altitude during the turn. It was working. They were doing it.

That's when all Hell broke loose.

The heat and dust energy being ejected from the Port side thrusters was at approximately 700 degrees Celsius, and when the airship turned away from the third mountain's peak it was with less than a hundred feet of clearance. The heat and reactive dust energy being released from the thrusters slammed into the mountainside, where it rapidly melted an enormous swath of ice and compacted snow. Even as John pulled the airship through the rest of the turn and exited the other side of the three Mountains, he left behind an avalanche the size of the Mistral Grand Arena. A billowing cloud of ice particles erupted into the air between the three mountain peaks, where it swirled around and slammed into the landscape below. From within the depths of this sudden maelstrom, a thick mass of black and white figures stirred. Over the next half a minute, over a hundred different sets of wings took to the sky to pursue the source of the disturbance.

"John," one of the Stern gunners suddenly called through the radio in a nearly panicked voice. "You need to get this airship hauling ass like now! That avalanche woke up the entire neighborhood! We're about to be swamped with the local wildlife and some of them are huge!"

Well… Damn. Looking through his cannon's targeting reticle, John saw exactly what his gunner was talking about, and he felt goosebumps growing along the exposed flesh of his neck. There were at least a hundred of the normal bird and owl Grimm flying in their direction, but that wasn't the worst of it. There were also about half a dozen Gryphon Grimm within that mass. Gryphons are a B rank threat at least because they are resistant to most handheld ballistic weapons. If anything was going to take these more powerful Grimm down, it was going to be the airship's two plasma cannons or it was going to be an aura bolstered sword stroke. At the moment, John didn't know if he was up to accomplishing either of those things. On the other hand, if he didn't at least try to defend them, they were all going to be torn to teeny tiny little pieces.

Widening the target reticle until it dominated his entire right eye, John called out to his copilot in as calm a voice as he was currently capable of making. "My apologies Payla, but if you could call out some very precise navigational directions for me, I'm going to follow them as closely as I can. My primary focus is about to be centered on the cannons, so I'm putting my faith in your good judgment. Are you up to this?"

Aye, aye sir, I can handle this Sir," Payla called out in an eerily manic tone of voice. "Turn 30- degrees to Port in five seconds and then 40 degrees to starboard on my mark."

"30 degrees to Port 4, 3, 2, 1, now," John called out, before blindly following his copilot's orders. Even as a sharp left turn forced John to brace his feet against the Captain's chair, he managed to reroute the power from the ship's fire dust heating system to flow directly into the cannons instead. They were all about to get a little cold, but fire dust was what the cannons used for ammo, and he had no idea if they were going to have enough. What he did know for sure was that they were about to go through a lot of the stuff...

"40 degrees starboard in 2!" All of the sudden, Payla sounded as if she was having the time of her life. It seemed that she was finally getting to act out her fantasy of being the Captain.

"40 degrees to Starboard, aye," John called back, feeding the woman's enthusiasm as much as possible. Then, two seconds later, he made the changes on the flight system, even as he aimed the guns at the thick mass of approaching Grimm. He needed to target the gryphon's first, before he could even spare the rest of the Grimm a thought. While the rest of the flying Grimm were indeed a threat, they could and were being shot out of the air using normal machine gun fire. That fact alone made them a secondary concern and far beneath his notice. After magnifying his field of vision using the cannon's camera system, John zeroed in on two Gryphon Grimm that were flying together in a tight formation at the front of the mass. The Grimm were 4 meters tall, part cat, part horse, part bird, and all feral brutality. John didn't hesitate. With a mental pull of an electric trigger, he launched a massive ribbon of light and plasma at the oncoming Grimm, vaporizing the two leading Gryphons and about thirty lesser owls and eagles. Then, without even getting to celebrate his victory, he was turning the ship 45 degrees to Starboard following a loud command from Payla.

While at first the gunners were celebrating the cannons effectiveness, they soon lapsed back into a horrified silence. The cannon blast had cut through the amassed Grimm like butter and slammed into a distant mountain. The reason the gunners stopped celebrating was because once again the snow and ice resting on its peak crashed to the slopes below, waking up yet another massive swarm of dormant Grimm. With every disturbance that they made on the mountains surrounding them, the number of enemies that they were facing grew in number.

"I see it," John responded, when several different voices screamed out for him to avoid hitting the mountains with cannon fire. He was going to have to be very careful about how he aimed his shots in order to send the energy flying up into the sky instead of down into the snow covered mountains. This was getting harder by the second and that was without having to steer the ship.

"90 degrees hard to Starboard," Payla suddenly called out in a nearly frantic voice. A mountain peak that had been concealed inside of a bank of clouds was suddenly emerging into view like a thrusting spear.

Reacting immediately, John deactivated the airship's auto leveling and altitude stabilizing functions so that he could both pull up and tilt the airship onto its Starboard side. The entire world instantly twisted on its axis and John was left hanging off of the control bank by his hands as they banked through the air. That didn't matter. It was working. They were climbing sideways away from the newest obstacle. A few seconds later, an audible gulping sound exploded out of Payla's mouth, as the airship squeaked past the mountain summit with only a dozen or so meters to spare. The sound was all John needed to hear to know that it was time to regain control of the ship. He doubled the strength of the thrusters on the Port side to level off the airship's body and then he peeled out of the tailspin by maxing out all of the thrusters on the forward deck. With that maneuver completed, he turned the ship's nose back down so that they could return to the ideal altitude, and he focused his attention back on the cannons. "Great job Payla! Good eyes and excellent navigation! Keep it up!"

"Aye, aye Sir," Payla responded in a deadly serious and professional tone of voice. "30 degrees Port side and then 40 Starboard on my mark... Now!"

For the second time in less than two minutes, John found himself both mentally manipulating the ship's thrusters to complete a very specific series of angular turns and eyeing the cannon's target reticle for a shot at the Grimm. Even as he felt the ship shifting and swerving beneath his newly planted feet, he aimed the lower deck cannon up and to the right and erased a massive swath of Grimm from existence. This time he only managed to destroy a single Gryphon as the other two within his sites managed to dodge aside. It was becoming increasingly difficult to aim at the Gryphon Grimm as they gained on the airship and used the nearby rock formations to hide from the cannons. They were getting closer and closer and a few of the bird types were even tagging the stern deck of the ship with some kind of wing feather projectiles.

"I need you to find me a shooting gallery Payla! I need a thin channel between several mountain peaks that I can use to bottleneck the Grimm." Even as he yelled those words, John continued firing the bottom cannon up into the mass of Grimm as quickly as it was able to fire without overheating the system. Over and over, he sent white hot reactive particles up and through the host of Grimm like a scalpel through cheese. It wasn't enough.

A dozen heavy vibrations indicated the moment when the fastest Grimm started landing in the airship proper. So far, it was only the smaller Grimm and they were being torn apart by the machine gun emplacements, but they were focusing all of their attention on the left side gunner. Within just a quarter of a minute, the gun sticking out of the left side emplacement was rendered into a piece of scrap metal and the gunner within was forced to retreat back into the body of the airship. Less than half a minute later, the second and third machine guns were also destroyed, and the gunners were sent running for their lives. The airship only had one machine gun left in working order and the man that was controlling it was moving like a bat out of hell.

"Sir, 80 degrees to Starboard in 3, 2, 1, now!" Climb at a rate of 30 degrees, open your damned eyes and adjust to fit." Payla pointed out the window where a jagged series of mountains were shaped to create an impossibly tight ravine. It was simultaneously exactly what John had asked for and a suicidal gauntlet of deadly rocks.

"Shit, shit, shit, shiiit," John chanted, as he pointed the lower cannon straight backwards and then focused his entire attention on threading the ship through the ravine. Even as he maxed the thrusters to push the ship 20 meters to the Port side with only a hundred meters to spare, he indiscriminately fired the lower cannon up into the gathering mass of bottlenecked Grimm. As dangerous as their current maneuver was, it was also working. With every blast from the cannon a thick mass of Grimm were vaporized and most of the pursuing Gryphon's ceased to exist. The major problem was that John didn't have the kind of control necessary to delicately weave through all of these tightly packed cliffs. He swerved to the Starboard and then tried to climb back up to the Port side, but the ship was a little too slow in responding and a series of Starboard thrusters smashed into a rock face. With a terrifying metal grating noise that rattled everyone's teeth, the thrusters were sheared clean off of the ship to fall to the earth below. In an immediate response to the loss of thrusters, John rerouted every ounce of fire dust that the ship contained to the starboard side and the three jets that were still intact. As a result, the ship just barely managed to level out again, but the power output to the rest of the ship, including the main cannons, was gone. He'd blown it. He'd destroyed their best defense with his amateur attempt at flying. He didn't even have the time to regret his failure. There was still a job to do. He had to get the ship out of this ravine. Slamming his mental will into the remaining Starboard thrusters, John forced the ship to turn 30 degrees to the Port, and then he tilted the ship to the starboard as he let it slide through yet another unbelievably tight gap. Over and over again, he pushed the ship's remaining thrusters into the red, causing the System Information Display to become a mass of angrily flickering indicator lights. He was breaking the ship. He was tearing the flight system apart.

When the ship finally emerged from within the twisted line of mountain peaks, Payla started hooting and hollering like a banshee as she smashed her damaged hands onto the padding of her chair. "Sir! Sir! We're almost there! The mountains are clearing! That's the Vale forest boundary ahead!"

"Very good Payla," John gasped as he leaned heavily against the control console. "Now, let's do right by the passengers we were forced to leave behind. The mountains aren't in the way anymore. We need to start sending the lifeboat coordinates to whoever's close enough to receive them. Make sure to tell anyone who's listening that we're in quite a bit of trouble ourselves."

After plotting a course for the airship to fly and then setting the computer to autopilot, John pulled his nanobots back out of the control systems and then collapsed painfully to his knees. He gasped and trembled as his body demanded that he stop throwing away his aura. It was nearly completely spent at this point, and yet he didn't have the time to let it recuperate. There was still approximately 50 Grimm flying towards their crippled ship, and they only had the one remaining machine gun. He needed to get out to the Stern deck to help defend the ship, or they were all going to be killed. Pushing himself back up to his feet, John walked over to a rack in the corner and pulled down his weapons. As per usual, he was using his saber and rifleshield combo. At the very least, he was going to be fighting with what he knows best.

"Sir…" Payla looked like she wanted to argue against him going out to the deck. She didn't do it in the end, but she looked like she wanted to.

"You were great," John assured Payla, patting the injured girl on the shoulder as he walked towards the remains of the Bridge door. "Listen... When the ship runs out of fuel, it'll settle down on a suitable stretch of land all by itself. Continue to reach out to whoever you can in the meantime. I'm not all that strong, but I do have some tricks. I'll buy us some time..."

Aye, aye Sir," Payla replied, offering a sharp salute and a meaningful nod. Before John was even out the door, the girl was loudly speaking into a com device that was affixed next to her seat. She was repeating the same message over and over in the hopes that someone was nearby and listening.

While walking through the dimly lit hallways of the airship, John drew in several deep and much needed breaths. According to his helmet's HUD, he only had 10 percent of his aura left, which meant that he couldn't afford to use his armor anymore. He was going to have to fight it out to the best of his abilities using conventional methods. Yuck... For obvious reasons, John wasn't a big fan of his current odds, but they weren't as bad as they would've been half a year earlier. For the last 6 months, he'd been undergoing combat training under the Guild Master of the Freelance Guild. Mr. Gears wasn't the man in charge of a Hunter's Guild for no reason. The man knew every single trick in the book and a few that were never written down. Six months wasn't long enough for John to become a gifted martial artist or anything, but it was long enough for him to actually have a form, as well as some techniques that he could rely on in a pinch. No… He wasn't going into this fight like a lamb to the slaughter. If he had to go down, then he was going to take some beasties down with him. Damn right! It was time to get to work...

Emerging into the freezing cold air of the Stern deck, John saw that he'd managed to get in place before the main body of the Grimm arrived. It was a state of affairs that he had to thank the sole remaining machine gunner for, as the enthusiastic man was spraying dust rounds like a madman, forcing all of the smaller Grimm to circle and dodge. If John survived the day, he'd buy that man a cowboy hat. The ranting, raving, profanity spilling man, seemed like the type to enjoy something like that.

Roaarrrr!

Ah... John didn't like the sound of that. There was at least one surviving Gryphon out there somewhere. Hopefully it was alone...

Roaarrr! X2 Thump, thump! 2 of the 4-meter-tall Gryphon Grimms slammed down into the stern deck, with enough force that they cratered both the wood and the metal beneath it.

Well... Ugh... With no better options and only the very beginnings of a plan, John started walking directly towards the two massive Gryphons. It was imperative that he distract them away from his last machine gunner. As he moved, he cracked his neck and drew his blade in a circle to limber up his wrist, but mostly he just repeated everything that Gears had ever taught him in his head. When he was close enough to the Grimm to look them in their fiery red eyes, he briefly thought about saying some sort of witty one liner. He didn't. Grimm don't compute anything other than "must kill humans," so it would've been a waste of time. Instead, John grabbed a flask of burn dust that he'd snagged from his cabin and slammed it down on the deck between the two beasts. While the explosion that followed wasn't strong enough to hurt them, it was definitely bright enough to distract them, and John was all about grabbing advantage. While the beasts reeled back and pawed at the air, he pushed the spine of his shield forward so that it mechashifted into a rifle. Then, when the closer gryphon looked back down at him, it was just in time to receive a dust propelled bullet directly through its left eye.

Even as the newly one eyed gryphon reeled back in pain, the second Gryphon launched in John's direction. Following Gears' training when it came to fighting multiple opponents, John dove to the side, aiming to keep the incapacitated Gryphon in between the two of them. After rolling back to his feet, he slashed two bloody gashes into the one eyed gryphon's front leg. Then he was forced to dive out of the way again as a wing swept up to throw him off of the side of the ship. In doing so, John missed the fact that the uninjured Gryphon was leaping directly over its injured partner. By the time he rose back to his feet and caught on to the danger, John only had a split second to react and he was driven to a knee with the beast's entire weight piled upon his shield. These Grimm weighed upwards of four hundred pounds each, so he was either going to get out from under it now or it was going to crush him. Thankfully, the Gryphon was attacking with its two front legs, which meant that the beast was exposing its feathery chest to his sword. Thrusting up as hard as he could, John felt the hot splash of Grimm ichor pouring down onto his arm. Immediately after, the weight piled onto his shield lessened just a little bit, and he was finally able to dive out from under its crushing body. As soon as he was free of the newly chest wounded gryphon, the one eyed gryphon launched back into the fight, hobbling in fast but jerky movements, with its beak in the lead.

So far, John had managed to injure both of these beasts, but he was having trouble landing a killing stroke. Not only that, but he was down to only 5 percent of his aura capacity which meant he needed to use it wisely.

The main reason that Mr Gears thinks that the Creatures of the Grimm are a creation of man, is because they pattern recognize, which is something that no other animal on remnant can do. With that tendency in mind, John leapt backwards multiple times as the half blind Gryphon repeatedly tried to slice him with its claws. After implanting a pattern into the Grimm's mind and creating a routine that they were about to repeat for the fourth time in a row, John suddenly leapt directly towards the beast instead. The Gryphon was thrown off by his sudden change in attack pattern and it wasn't able to react in time when John rapidly launched himself at its face. Stomping down on the beast's outstretched arm, John leapt up over the gryphon's beak and slammed the point of his sword down through the vulnerable socket of its missing eye.

With a ghastly but satisfying death rattle the first gryphon collapsed to the ground, only for the second gryphon to fly in through the black mist it left behind and hammer into John with all of its strength. John was swatted to the side by the beast's powerful claws, causing the visor of his helmet to spiderweb crack into hundreds of tiny pieces. Then, with a bone rattling crash, John's protective aura completely shattered when his body impacted heavily against the airship's metal hull.

As painful as the hit and the following impact had been, John could only be grateful that he'd managed to bring up his rifleshield in time. If he hadn't, he'd have been trisected into conveniently bite sized pieces by the Gryphon's claws. As it was, he'd cratered the exterior wall of the airship with his body, was blinded by his damaged helmet, and was currently collapsed onto his hands and knees. Well... Damn. He was in trouble. John took stock of his options as he pulled his helmet off of his head. There weren't many. His aura was completely drained. He wasn't shielded anymore. He was essentially a civilian, just as he'd been all that time back at the castle. He wasn't capable of high speed movement or super strength anymore, and he was vulnerable to an absolutely absurd degree. Still... John was more equipped to deal with his current situation than anyone else could ever hope to be. As awful as it felt to have all of the power of his soul drained down to nothing, this wasn't a new feeling to him. John knew how to use his purely physical muscles for maximum effect, and he knew exactly what he was capable of.

As he rose back to his feet, John asked himself what Gears would say under these circumstances? Then he knew. Gears would remind him that it doesn't take a hundred hits to kill a Grimm. It takes the right hit, in the right place, with the right timing… Okay. He could do this. When it was all said and done, all John needed to do was avoid one single attack, and then he'd get his chance. He wouldn't be able to aura dash, which meant that timing was going to be the difference between life and death.

As he took several steps away from the wall, John stared at the smug looking gryphon. It stared back. They both leaned forward as if preparing to dash at each other. Suddenly, John moved to leap in the beast's direction. The gryphon did the same, launching itself at John and sweeping its left claw out to intercept him in a fast paced slashing motion. After feinting just a single step towards the beast, John dug in with his heels and leapt backwards instead. He leaned back like a limbo dancer to avoid the gryphon's claws, but he wasn't fast enough so he took the tip of a claw into the side of his face. With a lance of searing pain, John's right eye saw red and grey and then nothing at all. It didn't matter. His eye was inconsequential at the moment because the plan was working. After straightening up and mechashifting his shield into its rifle form, John stepped right up to the beast's exposed torso and began slamming bullets directly into its injured chest at point blank range. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 bullets impacted the gryphon within just instants from each other and they were all aimed directly at the beast's heart. Then, when all the bullets seemed to do was stun the beast and deepen the hole in its chest, John cried out in fury, placed the tip of his sword into the entrance of the wound and stomped it deeper with all of his leg strength.

Shreiiik!

When the sword managed to pierce almost a foot deep into the gryphon's chest, the beast screamed to the sky and rolled onto its back to try to pull it out. No way, not a chance, John wasn't having any of it. With a feral growl of his own, he immediately leapt as high as he could to follow his sword, and then stomped down on its cross guard with both of his feet. With both his momentum and body weight forced down upon the blade, the sword finally managed to pierce the rest of the way into the gryphon's heart. A shrieking wail filled the air as whatever animus had been powering the beast quickly fell apart, and it began disintegrating. The deed was done... John was done as well. He fell off to the side of the gryphon's newly disappearing body as the last of his strength vacated his limbs. After crashing onto his side, he rolled onto his back and tried to regulate his out of control breathing. He was hyperventilating. He was in aura shock. He was bleeding from his face. He was trembling from head to toe. He wasn't going to be able to fight anymore. The ship was still being circled by nearly 40 eagle and owl Grimm. His efforts hadn't been enough.

He'd failed...

Due mostly to the sound of his own heart thumping in his ears, John didn't actually notice the crump crump booming of high powered artillery fire smashing into dozens of flying Grimm. It wasn't until a shadow blotted out the light from John's uninjured eye that he blinked and curled himself up into a sitting position. Someone, probably the gunner, was wrapping a ripped up piece of blue cloth over the right side of his face and screaming words that he wasn't currently capable of understanding. Despite his lack of energy and what he suspected was a minor concussion, John did manage to understand that something was happening, and that this something was making the gunner extremely happy. John smiled because the gunner was smiling and the man had really come through for him. They all had. In his fugue, John struggled to remember that he owed this man a cowboy hat... Then he felt himself falling and it reminded him of dropping into the well basin beneath Arc castle. It was dark, it was cool. It was quiet…

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Waking up under a foreign ceiling is never a good sign. Waking up under a foreign ceiling, with bandages covering half of your face, and a green colored IV drip in your arm, is the trifecta of bad omens. Over about half a minute's time, the circumstances of John's loss of consciousness filtered back to him, and he slowly returned his attention to his surroundings. He was in a small, hard, low to the floor bed, and the room smelled like medicine. This wasn't a Hospital though. This had to be a Med Bay of some kind. It looked military. It reminded John of the Atlas military, but it wasn't quite the same. Vale military then? As he slowly regained his mental faculties, John noticed that A) the bands that transform into his aura armor had been removed from his body and B) his helmet was gone. Turning his head further to the side, John saw that the airship captain was laying unconscious on a small bed across the room. Then, finally, John felt a subtle thrumming vibrating up through the bed, and he realized that he was on yet another airship. What in the…? Why was he on a Vale military airship instead of at a Hospital? Was he found out? Were these people taking him back to Arc castle?... No... That outcome was unlikely. He was currently on the other side of the ocean. The people of vale don't hold the Arc's in the same kind of esteem.

"Ah, you're finally awake! I gotta say it man. You're the man, man!"

After turning his head until his bandaged cheek was flat to the bed, John was finally able to see the face behind the old school hippie voice. It was the so far unnamed gunner. The man had a mostly healed wound on his arm and a smile on his face, and John would have to admit that he was inexplicably happy to see the man.

"Duuude," John slowly replied... So far as he was concerned that was the only word that needed saying.

"I know right? We're like, alive and everything!" With a fist pump towards the ceiling, the gunner sat down on a nearby chair and then ran his hands through his unruly black hair. "I thought we were gonna die like, sooo many times. I can't even believe some of the stunts you pulled off out there. Oh! My names Greg O'Neil. I'm a…"

"Gunner," John finished with a grin. You're a Gunner. One of the best."

A happy and infectious smile grew on Greg's face as he nodded his head like a bobblehead.

"Can you tell me why we're on a military airship right now," John asked, while gesturing at the med bay that they were sitting in. "I'll admit that I'm a little confused."

"Well, the ship we were fighting on finally ran out of Dust and landed itself not long after you passed the hell out," Greg explained, complete with hand motions. "Payla, up in the Bridge, harassed absolutely everyone that she could reach over any radio frequency to come and help us, and every single one of them showed up at nearly the same time. Search and rescue, the vale military, and even a professor led field trip from Beacon. Everyone and their uncle came. The Vale military were the group that volunteered to pick up the lifeboat's passengers, but only if they could bring along everyone that was on the ship, including us. While they aren't being hostile to any of us, we're all currently being investigated. The Jango... Oh, the Jango's the name of the airship you piloted. Well... She's in terrible shape. You're a complete savage behind the wheel man. Anyway, since the Jango's a Vale military airship that's commissioned to a public company for the purposes of long distance travel, it's their right to head an investigation. As we speak, the military police are going over the airship's camera system and its navigation logs to see what in the hell happened.

"Let me get this straight," John mused in a somewhat uneasy tone of voice. "We're currently flying over the mountains... again?"

"Yep," Greg assured with a thumbs up. "It's nowhere near as exciting this time though. Not with the pilot following the established route and all..."

"Remind me later that I owe you a cowboy hat," John yawned out, as he dropped his head back onto his starchy pillow. Then, after a moment, he opened his eyes again. "Do me a favor will you Greg. Wake me up when we get wherever we're going."

Just as soon as those words left John's mouth, a soft but noticeable thump ran throughout the entire airship. They were there. That much was obvious.

"We're there," Greg supplied helpfully.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now that he wasn't in desperate need of an IV drip full of advanced regen formula X or whatever they call the heal quick medicine over here in Vale, John was free to hang out in a much less comfortable environment. He was sitting against a wall within the airship's Hanger Bay. When he thought about it objectively, John realized that a Hanger Bay like the one he was sitting in was a really good location to house people that are currently under investigation, especially if they're not yet formally charged with a crime. It's a wide open and airy environment and yet it's also secure in the extreme. John found it interesting what choices a military will make when they want to skirt the edges of legality.

About four meters off to John's left, Greg was having what looked like a really satisfying nap, and he found himself resenting the man for his peace of mind. On the other hand, Payla was pacing the entire length of the hanger like a caged animal. No amount of telling her that the evidence would definitely exonerate them was enough to calm the woman's nerves. The rest of the airship's crew and the male passengers from the Dining Hall were milling around in the distant corners of the room, trying to control their nerves with jokes and idle gossip.

Thud, slide, crash, boom! The cargo bay doors suddenly became a symphony of different noises as they activated and started moving. Slowly but surely, they lowered open to reveal a sunny morning on the coast and a large group of very excited women.

One after another, the passengers that had escaped the Jango on the remaining lifeboat walked up into the hanger bay and sought out the family members they'd been forced to leave behind. The emotions were thick throughout the Hanger, as tearful reunions were happening every few feet. John didn't rise to his feet to take part in what was happening. He was well aware that it was his decisions that had torn these family's apart. It seemed hypocritical of him to enjoy seeing everyone reunited when he'd been willing to see all of the older men go down with the ship...

All of the sudden, John's somewhat morbid introspection was interrupted. Someone had dropped a folded up blanket onto the floor on his left hand side and was dropping onto it with a sigh. Weiss Schnee was gracing him with her presence. As capable as the heiress was, John was still extremely relieved to see that she was both alive and uninjured. He was also happy to note that she wasn't scowling at him like she had been earlier in the day. Or was it yesterday? Losing consciousness and then sitting in a Hanger Bay is a good way to lose all sense of time.

"I destroyed about a dozen E rank insect type Grimm, but nothing all that large or especially dangerous," Weiss preemptively answered in a dismissive tone of voice. "Now. Are you going to tell me what happened on the ship?" The woman's question was purely rhetorical. Weiss was clearly demanding that he tell her everything.

After slowly nodding his head, John turned to lean his left shoulder against the wall so that he could keep their conversation discrete. Over the next five or six minutes, he explained everything that happened as factually as possible, while trying to keep the details somewhat vague. It was a little difficult to explain how he'd operated the ship, because he was a little reluctant to describe his very unorthodox and finicky Semblance. Thankfully, Weiss seemed to be tolerating his secretive nature for once. In fact, she seemed to be going out of her way to avoid asking questions that he'd have trouble answering. Finally, John ended his story with, "Then I woke up in this airship's Med Bay and I owe that Greg guy a cowboy hat."

"You've skipped right over a topic that's of great interest to me." Weiss pointed out, with a no nonsense expression on her face.

John was confused. The heiress was acting as if he was keeping some vital piece of info from her. Unfortunately, he had no idea what she was accusing him of hiding. Then, very suddenly, he knew exactly what she wanted to know, and he bit his bottom lip as he experienced a surge of sudden anxiety. Weiss wanted to know about his injury. Monty Oum help him, she even looked a little bit worried about him. Damn... He was going to have to talk about it. During the next few moments, John drew in a very deep breath, because he wasn't quite sure what to say on the matter. Then, in the end, he decided to stick to the truth. He wasn't the type to grandstand or anything, and he wasn't a macho tough guy either. "My apologies, Weiss," he began in a somewhat hesitant voice. "I wasn't... I'm not trying to be evasive with you. It appears that I've subconsciously been avoiding thinking about my face. Just a few moments before the Vale military arrived, a gryphon that I was fighting managed to slash a claw tip through both my cheek and the orbital bone of my right eye. While I vaguely remember losing sight in that eye and then destroying the Gryphon, I passed out not long after, and I woke up covered with these bandages. While I was unconscious, I was given some military grade Dust infused regen medicine, which of course means whatever healing my face required has already taken place. On the other hand, I have no idea whether or not I still have the use of my right eye, or even if there's anything left in the socket. At the moment, I'm having trouble mustering up the courage to remove the bandages."

It was Weiss's turn to bite her lower lip as she stared at the bandages covering the right side of John's face. "Your aura ran out while you were fighting that Gryphon then," she pointed out as a matter of fact. "I... I have some experience with what you're going through." In a casual motion that still managed to look forced, Weiss pointed up at the scar trailing down her left eyebrow and cheek. "Surviving a life or death struggle under those circumstances is something to be proud of, John... At least, that's what I always tell myself when I look in the mirror and see my damaged features."

"I'm content with what I've learned about my character," John allowed with a small nod of his head. "What I'm not happy about is the exceptionally inaccurate way that you view your own appearance. Pardon me for giving you a very sudden and excessive amount of praise, but... Surely you're aware that that you're an astoundingly beautiful woman? That faded little scar on your cheek only serves to accent the brilliant blue color of your eyes. It does absolutely nothing to detract away from your facial features, and I'm quite frankly shocked that you think it does. I mean, even if you can't take my word for it, and I most certainly hope that you do, you need only observe the behaviour of your unbelievably tedious male fanbase. I'll tell you right now, at least half of that unruly mob doesn't give a damn about your singing voice."

"Hey," Weiss suddenly interrupted in an affronted tone of voice. "You complimented my singing voice just 15 hours ago."

"I did, and I stand by my words," John defended, with his palms up in the air. "I saw it for myself though. I had to stop your admirers from sneaking into your dressing room dozens of times while on assignment. For a large percentage of those boys, your ability to hit a high note is of almost no importance. Tell me Weiss. Do your posters sell well? Never mind, I don't need an answer. Of course they do…"

At this point, Weiss had her arms crossed under her chest as she tried her level best to look disappointed in her fanbase and maybe even men in general. She wasn't doing a very good job of it. She looked like a smile might break through her scowl at any moment. John figured the girl was conflicted because her standard teenaged vanity was warring with her drive for artistic excellence. He was perfectly happy to give the girl some time to figure herself out, so he closed his uncovered eye and leaned his head back against the wall. For several minutes, the two of them sat in companionable silence. Then, after hearing some quiet shifting to his left, John suddenly felt some fingers trailing up behind his ear.

"I'm going to remove these bandages for you," Weiss whispered, in a calm and soothing tone. "One way or another, you're going to be fine, but you can't wear these forever."  
While one or two sarcastic comments ran through John's mind, he never ended up saying any of them. He just nodded his head and then waited as the bandages were drawn away from his face.

...................

"I'm... I'm having trouble believing what I'm seeing," Weiss finally admitted, as John's bandages dropped forgotten to the Hanger bay floor.

"What do you mean?" John hadn't opened his formerly injured eye yet, but his good eye saw that Weiss was extremely surprised.

"Your scar... It looks like a mirror image of mine," Weiss admitted in a somewhat bemused tone of voice. "It's on the right side instead of the left and it's a pale brown instead of pale pink, but otherwise... it's the same."

"Wait what?" In his surprise, both of John's eyes opened wide and to his immense relief he could still see just fine out of both of them. What he didn't expect to happen was that Weiss's eyes would open even wider than before at the sight of his formerly injured eye. "What is it Weiss? What's wrong?"

"So deep a blue," Weiss breathed out as she leaned closer to take a better look. "Your injured eye has turned a royal blue color John. What in the..."

Very suddenly, John felt like a complete imbecile. No wonder he'd been blinded when the gryphon raked his face. The damned thing must have destroyed the dark grey color contact he'd been wearing, and the pieces had obscured his vision. There was also the chance that the durable little piece of plastic had actually saved his eye from irreparable damage! Either way, John was going to have to own up to the truth, unless he wanted Weiss to believe he suddenly had heterochromia. With a small sheepish smile, John reached up and drew the other contact out of his uninjured eye. "Uhh, My apologies for the confusion, Weiss. For the entire time that you've known me, I've been wearing color contacts."

"Bu… Why? Why go to those lengths? Why all the secrecy? Who are you really?" When John looked down at his knees instead of answering her questions, Weiss appeared to lose any and all patience that she'd had up until that point. She rose to her feet, grabbed her blanket and marched across the room.

Great... Just great... John slowly banged the back of his head against the hanger wall, as he thought of what he'd said and done and tried to think of what he could've done differently.

"You had that girl on the ropes right until the very end there," Greg O'Neil suddenly called out from 4 meters to John's left. Apparently, the gunner had been awake during their entire conversation and just hadn't bothered saying anything.

After a single moment where John was annoyed at Greg, he finally started grinning because the man was right. That had been the longest amount of time that the two of them had ever spoken to each other without Weiss losing her patience with him. As sucky as it was, this latest conversation was a noticeable step in the right direction.

"Thanks Greg. You're the man."

"No way man! You're the man, man!"


End file.
